Language and Communication in Early Childhood: Meaning and Components

A baby’s first cry is communication. So is a toddler pointing at a toy, a child waving goodbye, or a preschooler saying “more juice.” Long before children master spoken words, they are already sending and receiving messages – and this is precisely what makes understanding communication and language so foundational to early childhood development. For educators and caregivers working with all children, especially those with disabilities, a clear grasp of what communication and language actually mean – and how they work together – is the starting point for everything else.

What is communication? 🔗

Communication is the natural exchange of messages between people. It is how we share ideas, request items, comment on events, and express feelings. It does not require words. According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), the very first signs of communication appear when a newborn learns that a cry brings food, comfort, and company. From that moment forward, communication becomes increasingly intentional and complex.

Communication always involves at least two parties – a sender and a receiver – and it only succeeds when both parties share some understanding of the message being exchanged. This shared understanding is the engine behind all human interaction. The Education Hub describes this as communicative competence – not just having the linguistic tools to communicate, but knowing how to use them effectively in real social situations, adapting to different audiences, contexts, and purposes.

Language as the primary vehicle of communication 🔗

While communication is the broader act of exchanging meaning, language is the structured system that makes this exchange precise and rich. The NIDCD defines language as a set of shared rules that allow people to express their ideas in a meaningful way – and crucially, it can be expressed verbally or through writing, signing, or other gestures such as eye movements.

Language operates across several components working simultaneously. Reading Rockets, citing Lindfors (1987), identifies oral language as being made up of three core components: phonological (sound systems), semantic (meaning of words), and syntactic (rules for combining words into sentences). A fourth component – pragmatics – governs how language is actually used in social situations. Pragmatic rules determine when to speak, how formally to speak, and how to adjust one’s message to suit the listener and context. Together, these four components shape a child’s growing ability to communicate effectively.

Verbal vs. non-verbal language 🔗

A common misconception is that language equals speech. In reality, language takes two broad forms: verbal and non-verbal.

Verbal language 🔗

Verbal language refers to oral speech – the spoken words a child produces and hears. It is the form of language most people think of first, and it develops through stages. The CCRC guide to early language development notes that the most critical stages of language development occur in the first three years of life, when the brain is developing and maturing rapidly. During this window, children move from babbling and cooing through single words, two-word combinations, and eventually complex sentences.

Non-verbal language 🔗

Non-verbal language encompasses written words, facial expressions, gestures, body posture, and eye contact. These elements are not secondary to verbal language – they are integral to it. The Education Hub highlights that communicative competence draws on resources beyond just words: gestures, facial expression, drawing, and writing all contribute to how children share and understand meaning with others.

The California Department of Education’s framework on language development illustrates this vividly: before infants can speak, they participate in “proto-conversations” where they communicate through eye contact, cooing, smiling, and arm movements in response to an adult’s voice. These back-and-forth exchanges are the first building blocks of language. The non-verbal signals an infant sends – and learns to read – lay the groundwork for all verbal language to come.

Receptive and expressive language skills 🔗

Language development involves two distinct but deeply connected skill sets: receptive language and expressive language. Understanding the difference between these is essential for anyone assessing or supporting a child’s development.

Receptive language 🔗

Receptive language is a child’s ability to understand the language they hear, read, or observe. It includes listening, reading, and interpreting gestures and facial expressions. Triumph Therapeutics notes that children begin developing receptive language well before they speak their first word – even infants show early understanding through eye contact, looking toward sounds, or reacting to their own name.

An important principle here is that understanding language comes before producing it. The California Department of Education confirms that understanding language precedes speaking it, and that infants acquire an understanding of social communication processes before they can use language effectively themselves.

Expressive language 🔗

Expressive language is the ability to convey thoughts, needs, and ideas to others. This includes speaking, writing, and using gestures or signs. Connected Speech Pathology defines expressive language simply as the way a child uses words to communicate thoughts or ideas – but it also encompasses gesturing, body language, and facial expressions, particularly in early childhood.

These two skills are interdependent. Landmark Outreach’s research explains that receptive and expressive language skills are linked – a child who has difficulty understanding language will often also have difficulty expressing it. Together, they form the complete cycle of communication: receiving a message, processing it, and generating a response.

Why this distinction matters in early childhood 🔗

For typically developing children, receptive skills tend to lead expressive ones. Children understand more words than they can produce, especially in the toddler years. SDStepAhead’s early childhood framework explains that infants and toddlers understand more words than they can say, and gradually learn to express themselves – starting with crying and facial expressions, progressing to gestures, and eventually to words.

This progression also has significant implications for children with intellectual disabilities. Cerebra’s guide on communication for children with severe or profound intellectual disabilities notes that receptive and expressive abilities develop at different rates and in different patterns across children, and that not all children develop language and communication skills in a clear, linear sequence. For these children, understanding where a child’s receptive abilities lie – separate from their expressive abilities – is crucial for designing effective support. A child may understand far more than they can express, or they may use words without fully grasping their meaning.

A review published by the NIH on intellectual disability and language disorders reinforces this point: impaired receptive and expressive language commonly co-occur, and difficulties with comprehension in particular are a red flag for long-term language challenges. Early intervention is recommended, as accelerated language growth tends to occur earlier in childhood.

Alternative communication methods 🔗

For children who face barriers to spoken language – whether due to intellectual disability, sensory impairment, or other developmental conditions – alternative communication methods become not just helpful but essential.

Common alternative methods 🔗

These include sign language, lip reading, finger spelling, and picture-based systems. Each of these leverages a different modality – visual, tactile, or symbolic – to allow a child to send and receive messages when spoken language is inaccessible or insufficient. A review in ScienceDirect on AAC for children with speech and language needs describes these as augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) approaches – methods that either supplement or replace speech to improve communicative success.

A mega-review published in PMC covering AAC interventions for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities found strong evidence that AAC interventions increase functional communication skills, enhance language and social competence, and can even promote natural speech development in some individuals. This directly counters the concern that introducing alternative communication will replace or delay spoken language – the evidence points in the opposite direction.

The principle of total communication 🔗

Total communication is a philosophy, not a single method. According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), total communication is a holistic approach that promotes the use of all modes of communication – sign language, spoken language, gestures, facial expressions, and environmental cues such as pictures and sounds. The goal is to find the combination of methods that best serves the individual child.

Critically, total communication does not rank methods in a hierarchy. No single mode is considered superior. NAPA Center’s guidance on the Total Communication Approach states it clearly: the goal is for children to feel understood, even if they cannot use their voice to speak. The approach accepts and uses all forms of communication – verbal and non-verbal alike – including vocalizations, eye gaze, facial expressions, gestures, sign language, and AAC devices.

A 2025 study in Child Language Teaching and Therapy on the effectiveness of the Total Communication approach found that this collaborative method – combining active learning with support for speech through signing and voice output communication aids – can meaningfully increase a child’s ability to communicate using any available mode. For children with complex communication needs, this kind of multimodal support is often the key that unlocks communication when a single method alone falls short.

Building a communication-rich environment 🔗

Language development – verbal, non-verbal, receptive, and expressive – thrives in environments where communication is actively supported. The Education Hub points out that a communication-rich environment that allows for a range of forms of expression – verbal language, drawing, writing, body movements, music, and pictures – enhances children’s creativity, comprehension, and meaning-making.

For educators and caregivers working with children who have disabilities, the Virtual Lab School’s framework emphasises that communication and language development happen best in the context of consistent, caring, and responsive relationships. It is not about waiting for the “right” method or the “right” age – it is about responding to what a child is already communicating, in whatever form that takes, and building from there.

What do you think? Given that receptive language (understanding) almost always develops before expressive language (speaking or signing), how might this shape the way educators observe and assess a child who appears to have limited communication? And if no single communication method is considered superior in the total communication approach, what does that mean for how we design learning environments for children with diverse communication needs?

References

1. https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/speech-and-language
2. https://theeducationhub.org.nz/communication-in-the-early-years-an-introduction/
3. https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/early-literacy-development/articles/young-childrens-oral-language-development
4. https://www.ccrcca.org/parents/strengthening-families-blog/item/a-guide-to-language-development-in-early-childhood/
5. https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/re/itf09langdev.asp
6. https://www.triumphtherapeutics.com/understanding-expressive-and-receptive-language-in-children/
7. https://connectedspeechpathology.com/blog/receptive-and-expressive-language-disorders-in-children
8. https://www.landmarkoutreach.org/strategies/expressive-language-word-finding-difficulties-and-strategies/
9. https://sdstepahead.com/learning-domains/communication-language-literacy
10. https://cerebra.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Communication-1.pdf
11. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5801738/
12. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S175172222200083X
13. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8009928/
14. https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/professional-issues/augmentative-and-alternative-communication/
15. https://napacenter.org/nonverbal-communication/
16. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02656590251315598
17. https://www.virtuallabschool.org/infant-toddler/communication-and-language-development/lesson-2