A Coding System for Describing Conversational Breakdowns in Preschool Children

Analysis of children’s breakdowns offers a rich data source, potentially revealing patterns of weakness in children’s communication ability. The purpose of the present study was to present a fine-grained instrument, the Breakdown Coding System (BCS; Yont, 1998), for measuring conversational breakdowns in preschoolers. The BCS was applied to language samples collected from five typically developing children (ages 3;11–4;2 years) during naturalistic interactions with familiar caregivers. Results indicated that the BCS was a useful tool for describing children’s breakdowns. Further support for the BCS was seen in the high interobserver reliability for identifying (kappa = .8834) and describing (kappa = .9170) breakdowns and in its usefulness for profiling individual patterns of breakdown types across children. This study is an important first step in developing a valid and useful measure for clinical analysis of breakdowns in young children’s conversational samples.