This paper analyzes teacher communication with deaf students in terms of four dimensions: power, repair, pace, and linguistic complexity. Students interacting with teachers who used communicative features associated with power communicated less effectively than with teachers who exerted less power. Evidence that adults can change how they…

Five teachers using a conversational approach to language teaching with hearing-impaired students were studied. Teachers tended to exert a high level of conversational control, though conversational control decreased over time. The children (ages 4-10) exhibited language growth in their imitations and responses but not in spontaneous utterances.…