## North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

#### Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Emotional and Social Development (ESD)

#### Subdomain: Learning About Feelings

#### Goal: Children identify, manage, and express their feelings.

#### Skill Progression: Emotional expression

#### Age: 21-24 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 21-24 Months.

### Talks about emotions (happy, mad) and states (tired, hungry)

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child during different daily routines or play activities. Read or look at a book with pictures of toddlers engaged in different activities. When looking at books the adult can prompt the child by commenting on the expressions on the child's face and asking questions.

Elicitation Strategy

During different activities the child will exhibit a variety of emotions. If the child does not spontaneously produce language about feelings, talk about what is happening and how the child feels. Ask the adult to talk to the child about what she is feeling. “You are rubbing your eyes. Are your tired?” “Why are you throwing your blocks?”

Behavior Observed

The child uses emotion words spontaneously. (“I’m hungry.” “You hurt, Mommy?”)

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Encourage early childhood educators and parents to talk to the child about emotions. The ability to communicate about what she is feeling helps adults understand how she is experiencing different events. Use of emotion language can also help the child develop control over her behavior. If she can talk about how she feels, she had less need to act out her feelings.

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/.