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: 10-12 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 10-12 Months.

Grasp: Radial-digital grasp with wrist extended

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child manipulating tiny small objects, such as pieces of cereal.

Elicitation Strategy

Provide a container with a small opening such as a narrow plastic bottle or vase. Demonstrate dropping items into the container.

Behavior Observed

The infant’s refined grasp is developing. The child now orients the object over a container with a straight wrist and controlled release.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Encourage early childhood educators and parents to provide opportunities for infants to help them pick up small things (safe to put in the mouth). For example, the adult could engage the child in picking up cereal pieces to put into a bowl or give to the parent or sibling.

 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/.