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: Making decisions

Age: 2-4 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 2-4 Months.

Prefers studying people to objects

Situations for Observation of Skill

Watch child’s attention to both people and objects during natural engagements.

Elicitation Strategy

No elicitation needed.

Behavior Observed

The child will look at and fuss to be picked up by the adult. The child’s visual and tactile attention is more on people.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Explain to early childhood educators and parents that preference for people is important for the child’s attachment to the adult. It is important that early childhood educators and parents respond to the child’s interest and vocal requests for attention. Quick, consistent response teaches children that early childhood educators and parents can be trusted to respond to their needs.

 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/.