A computer-assisted analysis of studies on referential communication (giving directions/explanations) located 66 reports involving 80 experiments, 114 referential tasks, and over 6,200 individuals. The studies were entered into a statistical software package system (SPSS) and analyzed for characteristics of the subjects and experimental designs, factors influencing referential communication performance, and changes in research over time. The typical study reported a single experiment in which about 60 white, English speaking, middle class children five to six years old communicated on a single referential task. More than half the reports appeared in the "Child Development" and "Developmental Psychology" journals. Communication performance was strongly related to age but not to sex or verbal ability. The trends since 1960 in referential communication research have been to use younger children in the studies, to examine simpler communication tasks, and to use research designs in which the subjects talk to experimenters rather than other subjects. (The computer breakdown of the studies by various characteristics is included for easy identification of studies with particular properties.) (Author/RL)