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 the large muscle control and abilities needed to move through and explore their environment.

Skill Progression: Locomotion: Crawling/walking/running

Age: 18-21 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 18-21 Months.

Walks upstairs while holding on

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child near stairs.

Elicitation Strategy

Give the child a reason to climb the stairs (though he may not need a reason as this is a fun challenge).

Behavior Observed

The child hangs on to the stair rail and climbs independently.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Stairs provide an opportunity for children to lift one leg considerably higher than the other. It requires weight shifting, both to one side and forward or backward, depending on whether going up or down stairs. If the child lives in a stair-free home, encourage parents to take the child to community environments that have stairs for the child to practice.

 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/.