Missed opportunities: Verbal backchannels and response behaviour at opportunity points in five-year-old English children with a history of late talking

Abstract

This study examines verbal backchannel behaviour in English children aged 5 years and 6 months, previously identified as late talkers (LT), compared to typically developing (TD) peers in naturalistic child–adult conversations. Data from the CHILDES Clinical English Ellis Weismer Corpus included 36 LT and 37 TD children. Verbal backchannels were analysed for quantity, type diversity, temporal distribution, and responses to opportunity points. TD children produced more verbal backchannels per minute of adult speech, especially in the middle and final conversation stages. While both groups preferred simple forms, TD children exhibited greater functional flexibility and entropy. LT children responded to fewer opportunity points, with reduced overlap and more missed chances. Despite age-appropriate standardised scores, LT children displayed persistent pragmatic deficits. These findings highlight assessing conversational skills in natural contexts and the need for targeted interventions to enhance socially coordinated language use in 5-year-old children with a late-talking history.