A course in communication skills that is provided to all freshmen dental students at the University of Mississippi School of Dentistry is described. The course is based primarily on the human relations training models of Blakeman (1975), Carkhuff (1969), and Egan (1975), and consists of six modules devoted to the skills of structuring, attending, basic responding, additive responding, asserting, and terminating. The model is developmental and sequential in that each stage is successful to the degree that the preceding stage has been mastered. While a combination of traditional classroom lecture, small group skills practice, and individualized and self-paced assignments is used, the attending and responding skills stages receive the greatest emphasis. Audiotape and videotape feedback and critique and realistic patient encounters are generated by role playing. Students are pretested and posttested on the discrimination and communication skills using a standardized five-point rating scale developed by Carkhuff (1969). Response measures include use of written responses to written, audiotape, and videotape stimulus material as well as use of taped verbal responses to role playing patients. A chart indicating specific verbal and nonverbal ways of communicating in accordance with the developmental communication model is presented, along with examples of communication to which the dentist needs to respond, and data indicating pretest and posttest scores on the discrimination and communication indexes. (SW)