The role of language in self-regulation has been widely studied, yet there is little evidence on the role of self-regulation of pre-linguistic semiotic systems in early development. We present a longitudinal design study to explore when and how children begin to refer pre-linguistic signs with a self-regulatory function. We observed four infants interacting with an adult and a complex object at 11, 13 and 15 months of age. We conducted a microgenetic analysis of observations from a semiotic-pragmatic perspective of development and objects (Rodriguez and Moro, 1999). The children used different pre-linguistic private sings to self-regulate their action in the uses of the object (ostensibly without instruments, with instrument, vocalisations to accompany their action and to evaluate them). We describe the categories used to characterise these behaviours (both, used in previous studies and developed in this study), and we analysed observations that illustrate them.