North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Emotional and Social Development (ESD)

Subdomain: Developing a Sense of Self

Goal: Children demonstrate a positive sense of self-identify and self-awareness.

Skill Progression: Awareness of self through emotional expressions and verbalizations

Age: 6-8 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 6-8 Months.

Responds to own name by turning to look

Situations for Observation of Skill

Watch when the adult calls to the child when the child is playing or looking elsewhere.

Elicitation Strategy

Ask the adult to say the child’s name when the child is engaged. This should be done several times to assure the child is not just turning to the adult’s voice. Turning to his name is an indication of self-awareness.

Behavior Observed

The child consistently turns to his name (if not too distracted by another activity).

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Remind the early childhood educators and parents to use the infant’s name when playing and during daily routines. Understanding people have different names is part of social differentiation and self-identity.

 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/.