Interaction between deaf preschoolers and unfamiliar hearing adults

The purpose of this study was to broaden our knowledge of the deaf child's social environment by providing a detailed description of the interactions between deaf children and women who were without experience or training with deaf people. 15 mothers interacted in a play situation with an unfamiliar deaf 5-year-old, an unfamiliar hearing 2-year-old, and an unfamiliar hearing 4 1/2-year-old. The women adapted their communication to the needs of the deaf children in several ways. The women used more visual communicative devices, touches, and simpler speech when communicating to the deaf children than when communicating to the hearing children. Despite these modifications, the women's initiations to the deaf children were only successful 46% of the time. In contrast, the women's initiations to the hearing children were successful more than 69% of the time. The women compensated for their low rate of success with the deaf children by initiating interactions more often to the deaf children than to the hearing children. As a result, the women and deaf children interacted as frequently as the women and hearing children. However, because the women and deaf children had considerable trouble maintaining their interactions for any length of time, they spent half as much time interacting as did the women and hearing children. Some reasons for this interactional pattern are presented. In addition, the implications of the results for the nature of " Motherese " are discussed.