the aim of this study was to analyze dialogical interactions in a speech therapy group, consisting of four young people with mental deficiency. The methodology used was the socio-historical qualitative approach. The group was seen weekly by a speech therapist from September to December, 2002, at a speech therapy clinic/school situated in rural area of the State of São Paulo. The methodology applied involved video recording of the speech therapy sessions held with the group. After recording the sessions, the tapes were transcribed into regular orthography and the selected data, considered as the analysis unit, highlighting the dialogical dynamics established in the speech therapeutic group. The results revealed that the young people with mental deficiency have little effective participation in the dialogical situations. Therefore, the therapist has to intervene by providing the group with significant activities to promote the occurrence of language. To this end, this participation is characterized by various strategies used by the speech therapist, such as encouraging the subjects to ask each other questions, modeling possible questions, suggesting they should make comments about the topic under discussion, and others. In this study the production of oral narrative was one of the main symbolic activities that allowed for the occurrence of dialogue. Based on the analysis, it was possible to conclude that the speech therapy group is an appropriate environment for promoting dialogical processes. And here the essential role of the speech therapist stands out, as he/she needs to pay attention to the exchanges in order to guide the young peoples' dialogues by adopting various diversified strategies.
mental deficiency; group; dialogue; language development