Communicating with a toddler?

So my fiance and I decided many years before we met that we didn't want to have kids. Good deal, right? So any time we ever heard parenting advice, we never retained it.Now, we just moved 1,600 miles and are staying with her parents while we find work/a place of our own.She has a 21 year old brother named Austin. He is a really cool kid who works, like, 50+ hours a week and travels all over Pennsylvania for work. Austin has a 2 year old (25 months old to be exact) and is separated from his ex, so she has him during the week and Austin brings him home on the weekends.So, just because I chose not to have kids, doesn't mean I hate kids. I actually care about this little guy and that's what had brought me here to post today.Austin's baby (or is 25 months a toddler?) has some major behavioral issues. I feel like something is going on at his mom's house that we don't know about. His kid will CLAW, bite, scratch, and kick others. The most effed up thing I see him do is he will grab one of us by the hand or arm and "pinch." What I mean is he thinks he is pinching us but he doesn't know how to do it hard enough, thankfully. He grabs the skin between two fingers and thinks he's hurting us. He looks us in the eye and looks for us to vocalize or somehow show we are in pain. When he does it, he has a scowl on his face but once he realizes that we aren't being hurt, his face drops and he tries to pinch again and again to no fruition.Anyway, I'm getting off topic. This weekend he keeps dropping to the floor and kicking and screaming and "crying" (no tears, just makes the sounds).He doesn't talk except a few words like pappap, gruhmuh, choo-choo, kitty, deer etc. The thing is, nobody knows how to communicate with him and figure out what is wrong.He wants something, but Austin and the rest of us have no clue what it is.Is there any way to communicate with a child that can't speak yet? Do they make picture books or charts or something so a kid can point and be like "ohh this is what he wants."?Edit: Fixed one typo for chump. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2iZg2gP