North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Health and Physical Development (HPD)

Subdomain: Self-Care

Goal: Children develop independence in caring for themselves and their environment.

Skill Progression: Eating/drinking

Age: 10-12 Months

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

Grabs spoon in fist

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the infant during meals times and with a bottle. Watch the movements of the lips, tongue, and jaw.

Elicitation Strategy

Have the adult present food in a spoon and then give the child a drink from a cup.

Behavior Observed

The child takes the spoon into his fist, but is unable to get it into his mouth.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

The infant is now combining movements of fingers, hands, and wrists, as well as lips, tongue, and jaw. This allows the infant to grade movements and have more control over self-feeding. Although it is undoubtedly easier (and less messy) to feed the infant, encourage parents to let children help.

 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/.