Process for producing polyarylene ether beads from a polyarylene ether solution, comprising the steps of i) dividing the polyarylene ether solution into droplets, ii) transferring the droplets into a precipitation bath to form polyarylene ether beads in the precipitation bath which (A) comprises at least one aprotic solvent (component (1)) and at least one protic solvent (component (2)), (B) has a temperature of 0° C. to Tc, where the critical temperature Tc in [° C.] can be determined by the numerical equation Tc=(99−c)/0.61 in which c is the concentration of component (1) in the precipitation bath in [% by weight] and (C) has component (1) in concentrations of 5% by weight to cc, where the critical concentration cc in [% by weight] can be determined by the numerical equation cc=99−0.61*T in which T is the temperature in the precipitation bath in [° C.], where the percentages by weight are each based on the sum of the percentages by weight of component (1) and of component (2) in the precipitation bath.