Building blocks of communication

Communication is complex and involves lots of different skills. On this page, we are thinking about children who are starting to develop their communication skills. A child might not be talking, but they might be doing lots of other things to communicate. It is important for us to recognise, respond to and encourage these skills.

We can think of the different skills as building blocks that are part of learning to communicate.

Joint attention

Joint attention is a shared moment between you and your child, where you both focus on the same thing. For example, you might focus on an object, action or game.

Sometimes it is easy to know that your child is sharing attention with you. They might look at you, follow your finger as you point to something, or bring an object to you. However, for lots of children, it is much more subtle. Children might touch an object or do a small action or adjust their body position. It can be easy to miss these unless we really tune into the child.

Understanding

We want to know if a child can understand what words mean, such as names for people and objects around them. Your child might understand some words, especially within a familiar routine. They might follow some basic instructions. We also want to know if they understand familiar daily routines and events that happen.

Some children benefit from the use of visuals to support their understanding, such as:

• actions like gestures or signing
• objects
• photos or symbols

Anticipation

Anticipation is usually an earlier communication skill. A child learns to anticipate that something is about to happen. For example, think about a game like hidey-boo. The child learns that when the adult covers their face and says “hidey…”, they are going to say “boo”. They might show anticipation through body movements, smiling or eye contact.

Children also learn to anticipate in daily events. For example, when you sit them at the dining table or put a bib on them, they can anticipate that food will be coming.

Eye contact

Eye contact is sometimes used to show people that we are trying to communicate with them, or to check that someone is listening to us.

Some autistic children find making eye contact quite difficult. Older autistic children and autistic adults have told us that making eye contact can feel really uncomfortable. Because of this, eye contact is not something that we ever work on, or insist on a child doing. We look for other ways that your child is showing that they want to communicate.

Sounds and facial expressions

Some children are not intentionally or knowingly sending messages. They might scream or make sounds or other vocalisations. This could be when they are upset or happy or hungry. They might use different facial expressions. It is up to adults around them to interpret these signals to work out what the child means. If adults respond quickly, the child begins to learn that the things they do have an impact and can make things happen.

Actions

There are lots of different actions that children can develop. Some children might be reaching for things they can see that are out of reach, for example a banana on the table. The adults around them need to try to work out what the child wants.

Later on, children might deliberately try to communicate something to us. They might take you by the hand or push you towards what they want. They might even take your hand and put it on the object, for example putting it on the TV remote to ask for a cartoon.

These messages are not always very clear. Often the adult still needs to do some working out, to find out what the child is trying to communicate.

For example, they might pull you to the fridge but cannot tell you what they want. To work it out, you must show them different foods until they take one. Or they might put your hand on the TV remote, so you know they want to watch a cartoon but you do not know which one.

Some children may develop the use of gestures. Examples of gestures include nodding or shaking their head for yes and no, or pointing to things. It could mean they want to request something, or that they want to share an interest and show you something.

Imitation

Imitation could involve a child copying:

• actions with objects (like banging on a drum or pushing a car)
• gestures and body movements like clapping or waving
• sounds or words.

Imitation helps very young children to express interest in others for social reasons. For example, to share feelings, to take turns, and to pay attention to another person. We can use the child’s interests to motivate them to imitate.

Talking

As you can see, talking is just one part of communication. When we describe a child’s talking, we could mean:

• saying words and sentences
• making sounds like animal or transport noises
• saying little words like “uh oh” when something goes wrong or “ouch” when hurt.

The words do not have to be clear words. It can also be noises that sound a bit like a word, which are used consistently to mean the same thing every time. For example saying “din” every time they want a drink, or “bic” for a biscuit.

Some children with autism do not learn to talk in the same pattern as children who do not have autism. We expect children to learn single words, then putting 2 words together, then saying phrases. Instead, some children start by copying whole chunks of language. These are often learnt from things which they find really enjoyable. For example, fun games they play with family members or favourite cartoons or films. They might use these phrases with other people, often tied to an experience or activity. Later on, they learn to break the phrases into individual words, then build new phrases to communicate.

This is called gestalt language processing.

Both of these ways of learning language are great, and both can lead to flexible language use. If we work out what a child is doing, we can support them in the right way.

Not all children learn to talk, but that does not mean they will not learn other ways to communicate.