Many parents, SLP’s, and educators use the terms “communication” and “language” interchangeably. However, in the world of child development—these two processes are distinct, though deeply intertwined.
Understanding the difference is not just an academic exercise; it is the key to supporting children with developmental delays, and specifically those with communication delays (not language delays) such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). As Dr. Greenspan often emphasized, focusing on language before a solid foundation of non-verbal communication is built is like trying to teach algebra to a student who hasn’t yet learned basic arithmetic.
Part 1: Beyond Words: Why Communication is the Foundation of Language
For many parents, the ultimate milestone is the “first word.” We wait for that specific combination of sounds that signals our child is finally “talking.” However, developmental experts argue that focusing solely on speech can be a mistake. To truly support an infant’s growth, we must understand the critical difference between the developmental process of developing communication versus acquiring language.
While these terms are often used as synonyms, they represent two very different layers of human interaction.
1. Communication: The Social-Emotional Intent
Pre-verbal communication begins at birth and is rooted in the social-emotional connection between an infant and a caregiver. It is the ability to share a feeling, a need, or an intention through a sequence of gestures, facial expressions, and vocalizations. Eventually, between 12 and 18 months, these long chains of pre-verbal interaction become a “proto-conversation”.
Within the Greenspan/DIR™ Model, a critical milestone can be observed around 18 months: the Continuous Flow of Interaction (Milestone 4). At this stage, a child should be able to engage in 20 to 30 back-and-forth “circles of communication”, a “proto-conversatoin”. This is the primary focus of Greenspan Floortime—it isn’t about vocabulary; it’s about the “give-and-take”, “opening and closing of circles”, or “serve and return” of the co-regulated interaction.
The Research: Conversational Turns
This “Communication First” philosophy is backed by modern neuroscience. A landmark study from MIT (Romeo et al., 2018) used brain imaging to show that the number of “conversational turns” (back-and-forth interactions) between a caregiver and child—regardless of the child’s actual vocabulary—directly correlates with stronger activation in the brain’s language processing centers, such as Broca’s area. This confirms that the act of non-verbally communicating, and the expansion of the interaction, is what builds the brain’s capacity for language.
2. Language: The Symbolic Tool
Language is a subset of communication. It is the symbolic system—words, grammar, and signs—used to make communication more precise. While communication is about the desire to connect and the socially interactive patterns that emerge, language provides the symbols to do so at a higher level.
When a child learns to say “juice,” they have moved from gestural communication (pointing at the fridge) to symbolic. However, if a child learns words without the underlying communicative intent, they may develop “splinter skills.” They might be able to label 50 colors or recite the alphabet but struggle to use those words to express a feeling or solve a problem with another person.
Developmental practitioners warn that for children with developmental delays and Communication Disorders, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), language goals are often prioritized too early. If a child is taught to label objects (language) before they have mastered the back-and-forth of social interaction (communication), they may develop “splinter skills.” They might be able to recite the alphabet but struggle to use a single word to express a personal need or share joy with another person.
3. The Motor System: The Bridge to Both
A fascinating pillar of child development and the prefrontal cortex is that both communication and language development rely heavily on the motor system. We often think of language as purely cognitive, but it is physically demanding. Children use their gross and fine motor systems to communicate. Pushing, pulling, pointing, and nodding are all motor acts that serve a communicative purpose. An infant must plan a gesture (pointing) or coordinate facial muscles. To speak, they must execute complex oral-motor sequences.
The Research: Developmental Cascades
Research by Iverson (2010) supports this “motor-to-language” pipeline. Her work on “developmental cascades” shows that when infants reach motor milestones like sitting or crawling, their social world expands. A crawling infant can physically bring an object to a parent to initiate an interaction, creating the very “circles of communication” prioritized in Greenspan Floortime®.
Furthermore, a large-scale study in Frontiers in Psychology (Wang et al., 2014) found that motor skills at 18 months were significant predictors of language skills at 36 months, suggesting that physical interaction with the world is a prerequisite for talking about it.
Why the Distinction Matters
If we view language as the goal, we might spend hours drilling flashcards or labeling everything we see. But if we apply the Greenspan/DIR Model™ and Greenspan Floortime®, we focus on:
- Following the Child’s Lead: Using Greenspan Floortime techniques to engage in what interests them to spark the desire to connect.
- Strengthening the “Flow”: Prioritizing the number of back-and-forth exchanges over the accuracy of words.
- Building the Motor Foundation: Encouraging gestures, reaching, and physical play as precursors to speech, and responding to each movement as a form of communication.
When we build a robust foundation of non-verbal communication, language naturally follows as a higher level communication tool to enhance a connection that is already flourishing.
Part 2: How Does Communication Develop and Eventually Become Language?
Communication is the process of sharing intentions, feelings, and needs through gestures, facial expressions, and sounds. Long before an infant says “Mama,” they are communicating by molding their body to yours, making eye contact, copying your facial expression, or pushing away a spoonful of unwanted peas.
The Foundations of Connection and Communication (0-9 Months: Milestones 1–3)
The earliest social-emotional milestones are all about establishing a warm, reciprocal relationship. You cannot build communication without first establishing a secure, engaged connection.
Milestone 1: Shared Attention (Not Joint Attention): This is the ability to share attention with both a person and an object or activity simultaneously. True shared attention requires the child to focus on the person just as much (if not more) as the object. At a minimum, the child should exhibit a 50/50 split, dividing their focus equally between the partner and the activity. (Joint attention does not identify or measure the child’s interest in the person)
Growing into the Next Milestone: Once a child can show interest in you and the toy together, they are ready to become emotionally invested in you, i.e. engaged.
Milestone 2: Engagement: Engagement is defined as the ability to be emotionally connected with those around us. It refers specifically to people and the social environment, rather than focusing on a toy or activity. To effectively do this throughout our lives we must be able to stay engaged across a wide range of emotions.
Growing into the Next Milestone: Emotional connectedness is the fuel and motivation for communication; a child must want to connect before they initiate (or even respond) within an interaction/conversation. Additionally, for a child to learn to produce meaningful words, they must be able to process a caregiver’s face, including the eyes for emotional context and the mouth for creating the sounds.
Research in developmental psychology and infant perception strongly supports the idea that babies strategically shift their attention between a caregiver’s eyes and mouth to master language.
The most prominent study supporting this is by David J. Lewkowicz and Amy M. Hansen-Tift (2012), titled “Infants deploy selective attention to the mouth of a talking face when learning speech.”
Milestone 3: Intentional Two-Way Communication: This occurs when a child demonstrates social purpose through their gestures by responding within interactions (closing circles), or initiating them (opening circles)—such as grabbing, pulling, looking, or pointing—to impact their social environment.
Growing into the Next Milestone: The social intent and reciprocity established here sets the stage for solving actual problems together in the next milestone. When a child opens a circle of interaction (initiates), they automatically use some basic social problem-solving.
Milestone 4: Shared Social Problem Solving and the Continuous Flow of Interaction: Dr. Greenspan identified a critical milestone known as the Continuous Flow of Interaction (Milestone 4 in the Greenspan/DIR™ Model). By 18 months, a child should be able to engage in 20 to 30 back-and-forth “circles of communication.” These are often called proto-conversations.
Growing into the Next Milestone: A child needs the ability to sustain 20 to 30 continuous circles of interaction to create the neurological scaffolding for language. These ‘proto conversations’ are a necessary neurological precursor to developing language.
Key Research Findings
The study tracked the eye movements of infants ranging from 4 to 12 months old as they watched videos of women speaking. They found a specific “attentional shift” that corresponds with the development of speech:
- 4 to 6 Months (Focus on Eyes): At this stage, infants primarily look at the eyes. This is likely because eyes provide crucial social-emotional cues and are highly salient at a time when infants are not yet trying to produce speech themselves.
- 8 to 10 Months (Shift to Mouth): As infants enter the “canonical babbling” stage (trying to make speech-like sounds), they shift their focus to the mouth. This shift occurs regardless of the language being spoken.
- 12 Months (The Return to Eyes): Once infants become “experts” in their native language, they begin shifting their attention back to the eyes, provided the person is speaking their native tongue. However, if they hear an unfamiliar language, they continue to stare at the mouth.
1. “Processing the Mouth for Creating Sounds”
The research confirms that when infants reach the age where they begin producing their own sounds (around 8 months), they seek out audiovisual redundancy. By watching the mouth, they aren’t just hearing the word; they are seeing the motor movements required to produce it. This “lip-reading” provides a physical blueprint that helps them imitate the specific articulatory movements (lips, tongue, teeth) needed to turn babbling into meaningful words.
2. “Processing the Eyes for Emotional Context”
The study suggests that once the “technical” hurdle of sound production is managed (around 12 months), infants return to the eyes. This is because words don’t exist in a vacuum; their meaning is deeply tied to social intent and emotion. By looking at the eyes, the child learns the pragmatics of language—understanding whether a word is a warning, a joke, or a term of endearment based on the caregiver’s expression.
3. The “Expertise” Factor
The connection is further proven by the fact that if a 12-month-old hears a foreign language, they go right back to staring at the mouth. This shows that the mouth is used as a learning tool for difficult phonological tasks, while the eyes are the primary source for social-emotional integration once the sounds themselves are familiar.
Milestone 5: Meaningful Expression of Symbolic Ideas: is where language used to with social intent begins!
The Research
Modern neuroscience supports Greenspan’s “Communication First” approach. A study from MIT (Romeo et al., 2018) found that the number of “conversational turns” (back-and-forth interactions) a child experiences is a much stronger predictor of brain development and language skills than the mere number of words they hear. These interactions stimulate the Broca’s area, the part of the brain responsible for speech production.
Conclusion: Should Language Goals Be Prioritized?
For children with communication delays, like in ASD, the rush is often to get them “talking.” However, Dr. Greenspan argued that language goals should not be prioritized at the expense of communication.
If we focus only on speech, we might teach a child to repeat words (echolalia) without the child understanding the social “give-and-take” that makes language meaningful. Instead, therapy should focus on:
- Strengthening the Motor System: Helping the child plan and execute physical gestures, especially within a meaningful social interaction.
- Building the Continuous Flow: Increasing the number of non-verbal back-and-forth exchanges.
- Affect-Based Learning: Using the child’s emotions and interests to fuel the desire to communicate.
- Getting the Child to Do the Thinking: Making sure the child is the one making decisions, planning their steps ahead of time, and figuring out what to do next within a game with a caregiver leads to greater activation of the Prefrontal Cortex. This part of the brain is needed when we are planning what we are going to say next. It is used for gestural and linguistic communication.
The path to a verbal child starts with a moving, gesturing, and emoting infant. By recognizing that communication is the foundation upon which the house of language is built, we can better support children in developing not just the ability to speak, but the desire and capacity to truly connect with others.
References & Further Reading:
- Greenspan, J. (2024). Should Language Goals be Prioritized for Children with Communication Delays, like ASD? StanleyGreenspan.com.
- Greenspan, J. (2024). Communication and Language Development Rely on the Development of the Motor System. StanleyGreenspan.com.
- Greenspan, J. “How Infants Learn Language: Dr. Greenspan Was Right 40 Years Ago.” StanleyGreenspan.com.
- Romeo, R. R., et al. (2018). Beyond the “30-Million-Word Gap:” Children’s Conversational Exposure is Associated with Language-Related Brain Function. Psychological Science.
- Iverson, J. M. (2010). Developing language in a developing body: The relationship between motor development and language development. Journal of Child Language.
- Lewkowicz, D. J., & Hansen-Tift, A. M. (2012). Infants deploy selective attention to the mouth of a talking face when learning speech. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(5), 1431-1436.
- Pons, F., Bosch, L., & Lewkowicz, D. J. (2015). Bilingualism shapes infant’s selective attention to a talking face. Psychological Science, 26(2), 190-198.
- Ten Giesselmen, M., et al. (2013). Infants’ attention to the eyes and the mouth: A matter of social and linguistic expertise. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.
Wang, M. V., et al. (2014). “The longitudinal relationship between motor skills and language development.” Frontiers in Psycholog
Frequently Asked Questions
Greenspan Floortime is a comprehensive, evidence-based approach developed by Dr. Stanley I. Greenspan that uses emotionally meaningful play interactions to support children’s social-emotional, cognitive, and communication development. It is the foundation of the DIR™ model.
Communication is the social-emotional act of sharing intentions, gestures, and sounds — the foundation that must come before language. Dr. Greenspan emphasized building communication first, especially for children with autism, before introducing formal language goals.
When a child sustains 20–30 circles of back-and-forth communication (Milestone 4: Continuous Flow), they build the neurological scaffolding for language. Rushing to language before this foundation often produces splinter skills without true understanding.
Circles of communication are back-and-forth exchanges between caregiver and child — a gesture, sound, or action that is responded to and extended. Sustaining 20–30 circles is a neurological prerequisite for language and the primary focus of Greenspan Floortime sessions.