Foundations for meaningful communication

Prelinguistic Communication Skills: What Comes Before and Alongside Words

Early communication is broader than spoken words.

Children may show what they notice, understand, want, refuse, or enjoy through many forms of communication. Looking closely at those forms helps families and clinicians identify strengths, emerging skills, and an accessible place to begin.

These skills are not a rigid checklist.

A child does not have to master every foundational skill before speech or another communication mode can develop.

Development is not always linear, and a missing skill does not by itself establish or cause a communication disorder.

Understanding the term

What Are Prelinguistic Communication Skills?

Prelinguistic communication skills provide information about how a child engages, understands, learns, and communicates before and alongside spoken language.

They can help adults understand how a child sends and receives messages, participates with other people, and responds to support. They are observations that guide individualized teaching—not requirements that every child must meet in the same order.

Speech is one communication mode. The meaningful outcome is a child having reliable ways to understand and be understood.

Look for the whole communication profile

How the child shows interest or responds to another person
How the child expresses different kinds of messages
What the child understands in familiar contexts
Which supports increase access and participation
Whether communication carries across people and routines

Foundational areas

Skills That Help Us Understand Early Communication

Each area offers one part of the picture. A child may demonstrate these skills in different ways and at different times.

Intentional Communication

Intentional communication means sending a message deliberately. A child may use speech, gesture, AAC, movement, facial expression, vocalization, or another reliable mode to make that message known.

Shared Attention

Shared attention occurs when a child and another person share attention or an experience around the same object, event, or activity. It can be shown through body orientation, gestures, vocalization, movement, or other responses and does not require eye contact.

Turn-Taking and Reciprocity

Reciprocity is the back-and-forth quality of an interaction. A child may take a turn by acting, waiting, responding, continuing an exchange, or signaling that the exchange should stop.

Imitation

Imitation may involve copying an action, gesture, sound, facial movement, or communication behavior. What a child can imitate—and under what conditions—can help identify an accessible teaching route.

Gestures

Reaching, giving, showing, pointing, waving, rejecting, and directing another person can all carry meaning. A gesture is most informative when its purpose is understood in context.

Vocal Play

Vocal play includes experimenting with sounds, changes in pitch or volume, and vocal turns. These exchanges can be acknowledged and expanded without requiring the sound to become a word.

Receptive Understanding

Receptive understanding includes making sense of familiar words, routines, directions, and concepts in context. A child may show understanding through actions, choices, anticipation, or another observable response.

Communication Functions

Communication serves many purposes, including requesting, rejecting, choosing, seeking help, commenting, initiating, and participating. The function of a message matters as much as the form used to express it.

A responsive starting point

Find the Child’s Entry Point

“Start where the child can understand and participate.”

Identify what the child already does reliably and which skills are beginning to emerge. Then choose a small, observable target that the child can access with appropriate support.

Repeatedly pushing at a level the child cannot understand or enter may produce frustration, guessing, or prompt dependence rather than learning. The target can remain meaningful while the route, response mode, materials, or level of support changes.

One target at a time

Simple Practice Through Everyday Routines

Familiar toys and routines can create clear communication opportunities. Choose one target, allow time to respond, and accept the communication mode available to the child.

Bubbles: Requesting continuation

Blow a few bubbles, pause, and make an accessible option for “more” or “again” available through speech, gesture, sign, picture communication, or AAC.

Ball: Turn-taking

Roll the ball back and forth. Keep the exchange predictable and allow enough time for the child to begin or return a turn.

Container: Seeking help

Use a familiar container that the child cannot open independently and pause so the child can ask for help using an available communication mode.

Toy car: Imitation

Model one simple action, such as pushing or parking the car, and watch whether the child copies the action before adding another step.

Book: Shared attention

Pause at a familiar picture or event and notice how the child shares interest—through movement, gesture, vocalization, AAC, or another response.

Familiar routine: Receptive understanding

Use one familiar word or direction during a predictable routine and observe what the child does without adding several instructions at once.

Communication that works in daily life

Connect Foundational Skills to Functional Communication

A child’s communication should be considered across purposes, people, activities, and settings. The goal is not simply a correct response during practice. It is reliable access to messages that matter in everyday life.

Speech, gestures, signs, pictures, AAC, facial expression, movement, and vocalization can all contribute to a child’s communication system.

Related ModusCore guide

Learn how communication functions such as requesting, rejecting, initiating, repairing, and self-advocacy support participation.

Learn moreUnderstanding Functional Communication in Children

Individualized understanding

When a Closer Communication Evaluation May Help

An individualized speech-language evaluation may help when concerns remain about intentional communication, receptive understanding, functional communication, communication access, or limited communication across settings.

A closer evaluation can examine the child’s strengths, response modes, emerging skills, barriers to access, and meaningful next steps within the full communication profile.

Learn About Communication Evaluation

Common questions

Frequently Asked Questions

What are prelinguistic communication skills?

They are foundational ways of engaging, understanding, learning, and communicating that may develop before and alongside spoken language. They include intentional communication, shared attention, gestures, reciprocity, imitation, vocal play, receptive understanding, and communication functions.

Do children need all prelinguistic skills before they can talk?

No. These skills are not a rigid checklist or a fixed sequence that every child must complete before speaking. Children develop unevenly, and foundational skills can continue growing alongside words and other communication modes.

Does joint attention require eye contact?

No. A child can share attention around the same object, event, or activity through body orientation, movement, gesture, vocalization, AAC, or another meaningful response without making eye contact.

Can AAC be used before a child speaks?

Yes. AAC can provide communication access before, during, and alongside speech development. It can support requesting, rejecting, choosing, commenting, asking for help, and other meaningful communication functions.

What if my child communicates mostly through gestures or behavior?

Gestures can be meaningful communication. Patterns in behavior may also signal needs or responses, but adults should avoid guessing whenever possible and help the child develop reliable, accessible ways to express specific messages.

How can I support early communication at home?

Choose one communication target within a familiar routine, make the opportunity clear, allow time for a response, accept an accessible communication mode, and notice whether the skill appears again in another activity.

When should I consider a speech-language evaluation?

An individualized evaluation may help when concerns remain about intentional communication, understanding, communication access, functional communication, or limited communication across people, routines, and settings.