A study of mother-child interaction focused on the contingent responses children make to various mother strategies to elicit language and the mothers' frequency of using that tactic. The subjects were six normal and four retarded children, matched for general language skills, and their mothers. Mother-child interactions videotaped at home were coded for the potential teaching functions of the mother utterances and the pragmatic functions of the child behaviors. It was found that the mothers of retarded and normal children were similar in terms of general language usage and number of utterances but that the tactics the mothers used to elicit verbal behavior were different. Both groups used all four defined tactics, but mothers of retarded children relied significantly more on modeling, and mothers of normal children showed a more balanced use of strategies. Analysis of child responsiveness showed that normal children were generally more responsive, but not significantly. The correctness of child responses was analyzed as well as the relationship between frequency of mother use of a tactic and frequency of spontaneous speech. Further research on the differential interaction between mothers of normal and handicapped children is recommended. Several tables and graphs are included. (MSE)