North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Health and Physical Development (HPD)

Subdomain: Motor Development

Goal: Children develop small muscle control and hand-eye coordination to manipulate objects and work with tools.

Skill Progression: Manipulation/Tool use

Age: 4-6 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 4-6 Months.

Hand carries object to mouth to suck both object and hand

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the infant while seated in a high chair with a tray. Place first one small, safe-size object (such as a block or ping pong ball) on the tray table. After the infant explores the first object, add a second object.

Elicitation Strategy

No elicitation needed.

Behavior Observed

The infant grasps the object and brings it to his mouth.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Infants use hands and arms together to manipulate objects. They like to cause objects to move and make noise with gross movements. Encourage parents to buy or make toys and materials the infant can shake (ribbons) or bang (a spoon, or rock, an upside -down lid with a handle) to activate causing something interesting to occur.

 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/.