Early childhood communication breakdown: A scoping review

Communication breakdowns occur when messages are not successfully transmitted, received, or understood as intended (Garcia & Orange, 2022). Preschool- and kindergarten-age children's communication breakdowns can impact language development and social interactions with peers or other caregivers (e.g., Julien et al., 2019). To our knowledge, there are no reviews on this topic that synthesize what we know about what communication breakdowns look like, how often they happen, when, and what interventions exist to support when they occur in early childhood classrooms (i.e., preschool and kindergarten). The purpose of this scoping review is to examine the state of the literature with respect to how preschool- and kindergarten-age children navigate communication breakdowns with peers in a natural classroom environment. This purpose is inclusive of monolingual and emergent bilingual/multilingual children as well as children with and without disabilities. We anticipate finding a small sample of sources aligned with our research purpose and inclusion criteria. From the sources we find, we will establish notable gaps in the literature and set future directions for studies describing communication breakdown with specific populations and for supporting communication breakdown/repair in early childhood.