Pre-Verbal Skills that Prepare Kids for Talking: Stage 3 - Intentional Communication
- Tamara Gonzalez-Scheulov
- Oct 25, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: Dec 30, 2025
Before children use words, they learn to communicate through actions, sounds, and gestures. These early abilities are often called pre-verbal or prelinguistic skills, and they form the foundation for speech, language, and social communication.
This three-part blog series explores essential early communication skills that prepare toddlers and young children for talking. These skills are widely recognized in speech-language therapy and early intervention, and are often evaluated during play-based assessments of communication and social development.
Three Stages of Pre-Verbal Development
To make this information easier to follow, prelinguistic skills are grouped into three developmental stages:
Stage 1
Becoming Socially Connected
Stage 2
Sustained Attention & Engagement
Stage 3
Intentional Communication
STAGE 3
INTENTIONAL COMMUNICATION
In this final stage, children start communicating on purpose - to request, refuse, comment, or get your attention. Below are three skills that help kids move from “pre-verbal” to early words.
Pre-Verbal Skill | Focus |
Understands early words & follows simple directions | Receptive language |
Uses Sounds, Gestures & Imitation | Expressive language |
Initiates and maintains interaction with others | Early conversation skills |
Adapted from Laura Mize’s 11 prelinguistic skills (2017)
Understands Early Words and Follows Simple Directions
This pre-verbal skill is all about how children understand what you say. This is called receptive language. Children need to build strong receptive language skills before they can begin to use those words to communicate.
SLP TIPS
How To Help Your Child Follow Directions & Learn New Words
Keep directions short and simple
Say one step at a time: “Get shoes.” Pause. Then: “Now get hat.”
Use routines to teach
Incorporate simple one step directions into your daily routines.
“Throw it away.”
“Time for bath.”
“Shoes on.”
Highlight key words
Repeat a few core words across the day (more, go, stop, up, help, open, all done, etc).
Provide visual cues
Point, show the object, use pictures, or simple AAC visuals when helpful.
Make it playful
During play, model a variety of vocabulary, including action and location words: in, on, under, go, jump, splash, etc.
Repeat, repeat, repeat
Whether in routines, play, or practice, hearing words again and again helps them stick.
Uses Sounds, Gestures & Imitation
Before words, children practice communicating with sounds, gestures, and imitation. This is how they learn: “If I do something, you respond.”
What This Can Look Like
Babbling while handing you a toy
Making sounds to keep a game going
Vocalizing and looking at you for more
SLP TIPS
How to Encourage Vocal Play, Gestures & Imitation
Play with sounds
Use fun noises like animal sounds, “vroom,” “uh-oh,” “pop,” or “mmm. ”Say “uh-oh!” when something drops or “mmm!” during snack.
Imitate your child
If they make a sound or action, copy it. This teaches turn-taking and back-and-forth.
Model gestures with words
Wave and say “hi,” point and say “look,” tap your chest and say “me.” You can also model a few simple baby signs like more, all done, or help.
Use predictable scripts.
Repeat short, familiar phrases during play or daily routines, then pause to let your child fill in the blank.
Examples:
“Ready, set… go!”
“1, 2… 3!”
“1, 2, 3… "wee!” (on a swing or down a slide)
Celebrate and respond to all attempts
Reaching, pointing, clapping, showing, or babbling all count as communication. Even if your child’s message isn’t clear, treat it as meaningful and respond right away.
Initiates Interaction with Others
Initiation means your child starts the interaction, by looking, reaching, moving closer, gesturing, or vocalizing.
Adults are great at anticipating needs, but if we jump in too fast, kids get fewer chances to initiate.
The sweet spot:
Don’t jump in immediately (they don’t need to communicate)
Don’t wait too long (they get frustrated)
Aim to wait until they’re almost communicating—then help and reward.
SLP TIPS
How to Help your Toddler Initiate Interactions
Watch, Wait, and Respond Quickly
Look for small signals (eye gaze, reach). Fast, positive responses reinforce the idea that “when I try to communicate, people listen!”
Create Natural Reasons to Communicate
Set up moments where your child needs to start the interaction—pause a favorite activity, put a toy just out of reach, or give only part of what they need and wait.
Build Pauses Into Routines
Pause during songs, games, or play (“Ready, set…”) and wait for a look, sound, or gesture before continuing. These pauses invite your child to take a turn.
Acknowledge even when the answer is “no.”
Treat every attempt to request as meaningful. Even when the answer is no, acknowledge what your child is asking for (“You want the scissors”), then redirect (“That’s not safe - let’s use this play-dough tool instead”). This teaches your child that initiating communication works.
Why These Skills Matter
These skills teach children two powerful lessons:
My actions and sounds have meaning.
Communication changes what happens next.
When adults notice, wait, and respond, kids learn communication is worth trying again and this is what sparks intentional communication and first words.
What if my child isn’t showing these skills yet?
If your child is older than 12 months and not yet showing many of these early communication skills, consider reaching out to a speech-language pathologist, developmental specialist, or early interventionist for individualized guidance.
If you missed Part 1: Pre-Verbal Skills for Social Connection or Part 2: Building Attention and Engagement, you can read them here.
References
Prelinguistic Skills
Mize, L. (2017). Let’s talk about talking: Ways to strengthen the 11 skills all toddlers master before words emerge. Teach Me To Talk.
Receptive Language
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.). Communication milestones. ASHA. Retrieved from https://www.asha.org/public/developmental-milestones/communication-milestones/
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022, February 18). Learn the signs. Act early: Developmental milestones. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/act-early/milestones/index.html
Imitation
Fenson, L., Marchman, V. A., Thal, D. J., Dale, P. S., Reznick, J. S., & Bates, E. (2007). MacArthur–Bates Communicative Development Inventories: User’s guide and technical manual (2nd ed.). Paul H. Brookes Publishing.
Fenson, L., Dale, P. S., Reznick, J. S., Bates, E., Thal, D. J., & Pethick, S. J. (1994). Variability in early communicative development. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 59(5, Serial No. 242). https://doi.org/10.2307/1166093
Feldman HM. How Young Children Learn Language and Speech. Pediatric Review, 2019 Aug;40 (8):398-411. doi: 10.1542/pir.2017-0325.
Ingersoll, B. (2010). Teaching social communication to children with autism: A practitioner’s guide to parent training and a manual for parents. The Guilford Press.
Gestures
Iverson, J. M., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2005). Gesture paves the way for language development. Psychological science, 16(5), 367-371.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.015
