The young child’s ability to participate and “engage” in real activity must be supported for communication to develop. The young child needs to play, to move, and to interact with activity with communication, not deal with communication in isolation. All of us involved in supporting young children who will need augmentative communication to express themselves must recognize that their personal play and mobility experiences are critical to that use. Today we will explore these issues especially as they relate to the development of language itself, and laying a foundation for the use of AAC devices and strategies. Meaningful activity (intentional independent activity engagement) is directly impacted by the child’s receptive language, her/his visual motor perception, her/his language processing, her/his mobility and current postural development and postural control and her/his current sensory processing. Seating and mobility are vital to task engagement, but for the very young child, these must be fluid, changing, and exciting. This workshop will focus on how we can create these learning opportunities.