Improving social communication is a frequent goal of early autism services. However, it is unclear whether existing models of social communication align with the perspectives and priorities of key stakeholders, including parents, teachers, and expert clinicians. Stakeholder perspectives on social communication characteristics and priorities for young autistic children were gathered during seven focus groups. Participants included parents (three groups; n = 21), teachers (two groups; n = 8), and experts in early social communication and autism (two groups; n = 14). Content analysis procedures were used to develop and refine a codebook for themes and sub-themes that emerged from the focus group data and to code this data. Qualitative data analysis revealed several themes consistent with existing models of social communication in autism (expressive and receptive communication; social interaction), as well as novel themes related to unconventional communication, the impact of context on social communication, and the role of emotion regulation in social communication. Overall, participants expressed that adequately capturing autistic children's social communication skills was challenging because autistic social communication is influenced greatly by a number of contextual, relational, motivational, and regulatory factors. These findings provide valuable insight for aligning social communication measurement and support with stakeholder priorities.