The authors examine the effects of age differences on children's referential communication, through an experimental game playing situation, in which one child has to provide another with adequate referential information to allow him/her to identify a specific card from a set. The describing child has to provide a judgement of adequacy before the communicative outcome is known. The children are 3 to 6 years old. The aim is to find out what , if anything, children take for granted as speakers and listeners when playing the game, in terms of characteristics of the cards.