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

#### Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Language Development and Communication (LDC)

#### Subdomain: Learning to Communicate

#### Goal: Children participate in conversations with peers and adults in one-on-one, small, and larger group interactions.

#### Skill Progression: Participate in conversations with peers and adults

#### Age: 15-18 Months

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### Uses gestures and/or words for social interaction or to tell others what to do (e.g., blows kisses, fingers to lips for “shhh”, shrugs shoulders) approximately two times per minute

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child in play interactions with others or during daily routines with the adult.

Elicitation Strategy

No elicitation needed.

Behavior Observed

The child uses gestures to comment and give directions to others.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

As the child begins to communicate with the specific intention of giving a command, it is important for parents to let the child know they understand. Even if adults cannot do what the child wants (e.g., gets his coat and points to the door), they should let the child know they understand. “I know you want to go outside. We will go out after your nap.” Ignoring the child tells him that communication efforts don’t work. Over time this may reduce his communication attempts.

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/.