One hundred short test items representing the style and grammatical usage of ten preschool age children were selected from large samples of their narrative and directive speech. Three groups of adults predicted successive words in an effort to reconstruct the actual vocabularies and grammatical forms of the utterances. The predictors' correct responses were significantly related to type of phrase (narrative or directive) and level of syntax (correct or erroneous). Although the three groups of adults differed in experience with children and roles played in relation to children, there were no significant differences in their performances as predictors. When items containing erroneous syntax were discounted, the predictability of children's phrases paralleled the predictability of adults' phrases measured by the same method in an earlier study. (Author/DO)