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

Skills for ages 1-2 Months

Click on a skill below for information about observing the skill, elicting the skill, and interventions related to the skill.
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Emotional and Social Development

Watches own hands

Cries to express hunger, discomfort, pain or distress

Smiles at interesting sensory stimuli

Stares at faces and surroundings for long periods of time

Gazes into parents’ eyes; begins to recognize family members

Responds to different facial expressions of others and imitates simple expressions

Focuses on faces and stares intently

Responds positively to the quieting voice

Demonstrates a range of basic emotions, including interest, distress, disgust

Calms with holding, rocking, and adult talking softly

Shows distress at the cry of another infant; Imitates simple expressions

Imitates simple expressions

Health and Physical Development

Prone (on stomach): Lifts head 45°

Keeps head erect briefly in upright position, but head still bobs

Supine (on back): Turns head to both sides

Supine: Random windmill movements which stop in response to seeing object

Reach: Reaches with fist closed

Supine: Moves arms symmetrically

Prone: Weight on chest and flexed arms

Grasp (of small object): Demonstrates grasp reflex when finger placed in infant’s palm

Stares at objects and own hands

Release: No voluntary release

Tongue moves in and out (suckling)

Body parts easily manipulated for dressing

Takes two or more sucks before swallowing or taking a breath

May lose liquid from side of mouth

Language Development and Communication

Distinguishes between parents’ voices and other sounds

Discriminates native language from a foreign language

Makes eye contact with parent and smiles

Smiles at familiar face

Cries to express hunger, discomfort, pain, or distress

Vocalizes with non-speech-like burps, grunts, and coughs

No observable sound errors

Vocalizes to parent’s smile

Knows familiar people

Examines contrasting patterns

Stares at black and white patterns

Cognitive Development

Tracks objects and faces

Stares longer at familiar faces than objects

Repeats pleasurable self-directed actions

Studies faces

Calms to rhythmic movement, sounds, and music

Attends to contours and contrasts

Calms to rhythmic movement, sounds, and music

Focuses on parent’s face

Stares at faces, particularly eyes and contours

Prefers people to objects

Discriminates between voices and people

Scans eyes and contours of faces if in close proximity and within view; prefers looking at faces to objects

Prefers large, bold patterns to plain pictures

Sensitive to strong contrast

Scans contours

Recognizes sounds of parents’ voices

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

Studies faces and objects within close visual range

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/.