Abstract We consider an inverse scattering problem of recovering the unknown coefficients of quasi-linearly perturbed biharmonic operator on the line. These unknown complex-valued coefficients are assumed to satisfy some regularity conditions on their nonlinearity, but they can be discontinuous or singular in their space variable. We prove that the inverse Born approximation can be used to recover some essential information about the unknown coefficients from the knowledge of the reflection coefficient. This information is the jump discontinuities and the local singularities of the coefficients.