Maternal conversational control and the development of deaf children: a test of the stage hypothesis

Abstract

A longitudinal study was conducted of maternal conversational control in 34 dyads of mothers and their deaf preschool children. Half of the dyads used total communication (TC) and half used auditory-oral (A/O) communication. Using first year data, the dyads were divided into Hi and Lo levels of maternal conver sational control and Hi and Lo levels of children's communicative competence. Analysis of children's gains indicated that a Lo level of turn control was associated with greater expressive gains in both the Lo and Hi competence groups; turn control bore no relationship to receptive gains. Maternal response control interacted with communication level and communication mode to predict differential gains. The implications of the findings for a stage hypothesis are discussed.