Oral conversations between hearing-impaired children and their normally hearing peers and teachers

Twelve hearing-impaired children (mean age 8;8 years) were videotaped as they each constructed Lego models with two partners: a normally hearing peer and a teacher. A comparison was made between their utterances and spoken turns with peers and teachers. The frequency of these did not differ between the two, although they took more total turns (verbal and nonverbal) with teachers than peers. With peers their turns contained more utterances and their contribution to the conversations was pro portionally greater in relation to length of turns and utterances. Teachers talked more than peers and used longer turns and utterances. These differences are examined through a qualitative analysis. The educational implications and directions for future research are discussed. © Alpha Academic.