Three Downs Syndrome children (1 to 4 years old) and their mothers and four graduate student clinicians participated in a study of adult-child interaction and child comprehension. Mothers were asked to assess their child's comprehension in informal preliminary interviews, children were tested for early-developing linguistic comprehension, and both the mothers and their children and the students and the children were videotaped in a series of 10-minute play sessions. After each play session the students were asked to judge the children's comprehension. Videotapes were analyzed regarding verbal requests, gestures and child-adult interaction. Results were compared with an earlier study, and similarities were found in the number of requests made by the adult samples and in the strategies for facilitating compliance. However, compliance rate was markedly different. Both students and mothers were generally accurate in their estimates of the children's comprehension competencies. Findings suggested the importance of pause time in predicting whether children would eventually comply with the requests. (CL)