North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Cognitive Development (CD)

Subdomain: Construction of Knowledge: Thinking and Reasoning

Goal: Children demonstrate the ability to think about their own thinking: reasoning, taking perspectives, and making decisions

Skill Progression: Taking perspectives

Age: 21-24 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 21-24 Months.

Knows what will make others laugh and shares humor

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child during daily routines.

Elicitation Strategy

If the child does not demonstrate a sense of humor spontaneously during observations, the adult can initiate silly games. For example, put a bowl on head; call an ear an eye; make a funny face. Once the adult makes the child laugh, the adult says, “Your turn to make me laugh.”

Behavior Observed

See what the child does to make the adult laugh. Does she repeat what the adult did, or does she do something different, indicating individual thinking?

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Humor is an important part of life. Encourage parents to laugh with their child. Being silly is fun, even for adults. Encourage them to make time each day for singing, dancing, and just making each other laugh.

 North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 2015

©2015 by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.