North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Cognitive Development (CD)

Subdomain: Mathematical Thinking and Expression

Goal: Children identify and use common shapes and concepts about position during play and other activities.

Skill Progression: Spatial understanding

Age: 1-2 Months

You may choose a different domain, go back, or click on a skill below for more information.

Follows moving object with eyes (within close distance), though not smoothly

Situations for Observation of Skill

Hold a high contrast object in front of the infant and make sure the infant is gazing at the object.

Elicitation Strategy

Slowly move the object from the center to one side of the child’s head, then back across the child’s face to the other side.

Behavior Observed

The child’s will track the object visually. Being able to track indicates the child awareness of movement in space.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Parents are always interested in seeing what their infant can do. Help them understand that this simple skill is the beginning of spatial awareness.

 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/.