RL.C.25 POINTS TO ONE BODY PART WHEN NAMED

When your child has completed this sequence, she will have learned to point to 16 body parts. The D.S.I. will give you a guide as to how many are normally mastered at each level of development, but this should not be seen as a firm rule. The easiest, most natural way to teach body parts is to teach them continuously, one at a time, introducing a new one when the previous one has been mastered.

Use normal daily activities to teach body parts. It makes no sense to sit a child in a chair and ask her to point to her chin 5 times in a row! Teach at bath-time, dressing time, playtime. Stop on your way past the mirror to find body parts with your child. Make use of dolls and teddies, and pictures too. The main points about teaching this skill are:

• Know your objectives, so that the relevant body parts get sufficient emphasis.
• Don’t always show your child: let your child show you.

You can teach the body parts in the order that seems best to you. Hair, mouth and hand are usually among the earliest ones to be learned; arm, leg and back are among the later ones. In between, you could teach nose, finger, eyes, ears, toes, chin, teeth, tongue, tummy and knee. Be guided by the interest your child shows in her own and other people’s bodies.

How to Assess

Method: Choosing the body part your child is most likely to know, say ‘Where’s your …?’ Give 3 tries. You can then try other body parts, giving 3 tries for each,

Score plus if your child points to one named body part in 2 out of 3 tries.

Note that once your child knows 4 body parts, including the first one, she scores plus for RL.C.31; when she knows seven she scores for RL.C.36, and so on.