## 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: 8-10 Months

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

### Release: Initially, clumsy release of object above a container with wrist flexed-may miss; later, controlled release, wrist straight

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the infant releasing small pieces of food into a bowl.

Elicitation Strategy

Place a container in front of the child and prompt the child to, “Put it in.” Demonstrate dropping an object in the container if needed.

Behavior Observed

Release develops as the child straightens the wrist over a container.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Encourage early childhood educators and parents to provide opportunities for the infant to self-feed with tiny bites. This gives the child an opportunity to practice picking up small objects. Provide different shapes and sizes of containers for the child to drop objects into. Large openings are needed at first, so the infant can be successful.

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/.