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: Reach/Grasp/Release

Age: 6-8 Months

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

Grasp (of tiny object): Initially, rakes object into palm with fingers, thumb bent

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child on her stomach with a desired toy within reach.

Elicitation Strategy

Give the child a small piece of food on a table or high chair tray.

Behavior Observed

The child slightly shifts her weight to one side to enable one arm to reach forward.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Encourage parents to give the child tummy time and tempt them with toys to prompt reaching.

 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/.