North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Language Development and Communication (LDC)

Subdomain: Learning to Communicate

Goal: Children understand communications from others.

Skill Progression: Understand communication from others

Age: 8-10 Months

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

Follows simple requests paired with gestures

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the infant and adult in interaction in play or a daily routine.

Elicitation Strategy

If the adult does not spontaneously give a command with a gesture (e.g., “Give me….,” with outreached hand; “Get the…,” with a point) ask the adult to do so.

Behavior Observed

The infant looks at the adult and does as is asked.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Help early childhood educators and parents understand the importance of gestures to the child’s language comprehension. Holding up an object and pointing toward the subject of conversation helps the infant pair the word with the item or person being labeled. When the same item is identified numerous times, the child may no longer need the gesture to understand the topic of conversation.

 North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 2015

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