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: 15-18 Months

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Begins to run stiffly, but falls easily

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child walking and running during daily activities.

Elicitation Strategy

No elicitation needed. If the child does not spontaneously walk sideways, provide a pull toy on a string. The child will walk sideways in order to both pull it and watch it at the same time.

Behavior Observed

Increased stability enables the child to move more quickly and begin to run.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Encourage the adult to play with the child with toys, such as balls, self-propelling cars or trucks, etc. These types of toys motivate the child to run and get them. Children also are experimenting with moving away from parents, but still need them to be close. For this reason, children love chase games at this age. They run, and then look back for the adult to chase and catch them.

 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/.