## 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: 12-15 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 12-15 Months.

### Grasp: Refined pincer grasp between tip of thumb to tip of index finger

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child putting small food items into a narrow-necked container.

Elicitation Strategy

Give the child small food to feed an open-mouthed plastic animal, or drop food into a small-mouthed container to “feed” it.

Behavior Observed

The child grasps objects between tip of thumb and tip of index finger.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Introduce activities that require two hands, such as drawing, using a bowl and spoon to stir, holding a toy with one hand, activating it with another, etc. Explain to early childhood educators and parents how as the child matures, an increasing number of activities will require different movements on alternate sides of the body. Provide activities that encourage using hands in different ways, such as holding a box and removing the top.

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/.