Speech therapy with a group of hearing-impaired adolescents I: a sociolinguistic analysis of therapy sessions

Abstract

Speech therapy conversations between five dyads, comprising senior speech pathology students and hearing-impaired adolescents enrolled in a Total Communication programme, were videorecorded for five weekly sessions. Samples over one-minute intervals at the start, middle and end of the sessions were analysed for topic initiations and initiators, conversational turns, and responses to questions according to the communication modes: speech; sign or gesture; and speech combined with sign or gesture. Statistical analyses explored differences between dyads, conversational partners, sessions, and intervals, and their inter actions, in relation to mode. The results are discussed with reference to changes in conversational competence with therapy.

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