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: Arm movements

Age: 8-10 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 8-10 Months.

Sitting: One arm reaches in direct approach, with wrist and fingers extended

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child in sitting with an interesting toy within reach in front of him.

Elicitation Strategy

No elicitation needed.

Behavior Observed

The infant leans toward the toy, extends his arm and opens the hand, with fingers extended, before grasping the object.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Encourage early childhood educators and parents to place objects around the child in different placements, so the child reaches in different directions and uses alternate hands. This encourages the child to reach across and to the side, thus also practicing weight shifting.

 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/.