Bedtime talk of three-year-olds: Collaborative repair of miscommunication

Recordings of spontaneous bedtime conversations in which adult involvement is minimal were conducted during naptime at kibbutz children's houses. Participants were nine Hebrew-speaking children aged 2;8-3;6, who constituted three conversation groups. The study was designed to observe conversational processes in spontaneous interactions of young peers and it focused on their strategies of clarification in the face of miscommunication. Results show that all children participated in clarification sequences, although children younger than age three initiated significantly fewer clarifications. Children used various types of clarification requests, and 70% of their repair responses were appropriate. These findings suggest that young children are able to handle miscommunications and to succeed in conversational management without adult assistance.