Children’s communication repairs with AI versus human partners

Abstract

Children’s interactions with artificial intelligence (AI) are growing, yet communication breakdowns—instances where mutual understanding fails—remain a challenge, especially for young children. While generative AI shows promise in engaging children in open-ended conversations, how children navigate and repair these communication breakdowns remains unclear. This study compares how 78 children, aged four to eight years, managed communication breakdowns and repair strategies while co-creating stories with an AI agent (powered by a large language model) versus a human counterpart. Results reveal that the type of conversational partner—human or AI—significantly influenced children’s repair behaviors. Children experienced more communication breakdowns when interacting with the AI partner but attempted repairs more frequently with the human counterpart. Misunderstandings and mishearings are the most frequent causes, with clarification requests as the primary repair strategy in both cases. However, when interacting with the AI, children were more likely to go along with the conversation flow to compensate for AI errors, even when the dialogue deviated from their intended meaning—a pattern not observed with human partners. Additionally, children’s social perceptions of their partner, especially beliefs about emotional capacity and their psychological closeness to their partner, influenced repair attempts. This study expands research on children’s conversational repairs with AI, shedding light on the role of social dynamics in shaping these interactions.