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In stage 1 classroom conversations between sixteen teachers and their pre-lingually deaf children were videotaped and analysed to examine both the styles used by teachers in controlling conversation and the functions pursued in dialogue. In stage 2 a sub-sample of four teachers with twenty children of known hearing losses and non-verbal intelligence was analysed in greater detail to examine relationships between these factors, teaching styles and the child's performance in dialogue. The analyses show that deaf children respond in a similar fashion to young hearing children in the way they react to different styles of teacher talk; that teachers differ in the functions they pursue in conversation; and that functions change as a consequence of the child's hearing loss but not mental age. The implications of the findings for linguistic development in pre-lingually deaf children are explored.