Maintaining Intersubjectivity When Communication Is Challenging: Hearing Impairment and Complex Needs

This article aims to describe intersubjective processes in communication between children who have unequal prerequisites for communication—in this case, between a hearing-impaired child with complex needs and an unimpaired classmate. The article shows how the interactants inhabit different social identities throughout the situation and how these identities influence the (a)symmetry of the different collaboratively constructed communicative activities. I argue that the concept of intersubjectivity needs to be broadened in order to understand, and describe, the participants’ interaction patterns. Data are in Norwegian and in English translation.