Dialogue in deaf and hearing preschoolers

The language interactions of pairs of preschool-age deaf and preschool-age hearing children were recorded in play sessions and analyzed according to a system for assessing dialogue that has been developed by the second author. In the system, each person over the course of a dialogue is seen as playing two roles: one as speaker-initiator (who puts forth ideas) the other as speaker-responder (who responds to the ideas that have been put forth by the partner in the dialogue). The results indicated that both roles were used by the deaf and the hearing dyads, but their pattern of performance was different. As speaker-initiators, the deaf children displayed a narrower range of complexity in their utterances. As speaker-responders, they were less likely to respond to utterances of their partners, particularly those utterances in the form of comments, and they more readily showed difficulties in responding appropriately as their partner's initiations increased in complexity. The discussion focuses on the implications of viewing language performance within a communication framework.