Piaget has suggested that a child's language reflects the degree to which he is able to take into account the point of view of his listener. His inability to do so results in what Piaget calls egocentric speech whereas what Piaget calls socialized speech indicates that the child actually adopts his listener's viewpoint and engages in an exchange of ideas. The present study was an initial effort to explore the potential of conversational rhythm as another criterion for distinguishing between egocentric and sociocentric orientations. Forty children were assembled into 20 same-sex pairs on the basis of age. The children in 10 of the pairs were between 5 and 6 years of age; the other 10, between 6 and 7 years old. Each pair engaged in a 20-minute conversation on each of two occasions. The 40 conversations were electronically analyzed in terms of pauses (silences within the utterances of a single speaker) and switching pauses (Silences between the utterances of two speakers). The results indicated that the average duration of pauses and switching pauses were consistent within conversation and from conversation to conversation both for the younger and older pairs. (Author)