Dyadic interactions between deaf children and their communication partners

This study assesses the quality of communicative interaction in a group of profoundly deaf children, and the nature and efficiency of different modes of communication. Data were video-recorded. Each recording lasted 10 minutes. The situations were of dyadic interactions using materials and tasks that required cooperation and/or information exchange. The participants in the study were deaf and hearing children, some of whom knew each other and some of whom did not; a deaf adult who was unfamiliar to the children; and a hearing adult who was familiar to the children. Interaction variables (initiation, continuation, ending, and complexity) and communicative modalities (sign, actions, conventional gestures, deictics, verbalizations, vocalizations, physical contact, and objects) were analyzed. The findings relate the different modalities used, their communicative efficiency and their relationship to the types of partners, suggesting greater attention to the informal aspects of communication and emphasizing the importance of linguistic adjustments among speakers.