Data obtained through 18, 5-minute observations of nine depressed and nine nondepressed institutionalized mentally retarded adults revealed five patterns of verbal interaction including: (a) other individuals were more likely to request action from depressed individuals than to make declarative statements; (b) the depressed subjects were more likely to gain compliance by exhibiting negative affect; (c) the depressed subjects were more likely to resist request by exhibiting negative affect; (d) other individuals were more likely to exhibit negative affect when interacting with depressed subjects; (e) staff rather than peers were more likely to interact with depressed subject. Depressed and non-depressed subjects could not be differentiated by the number of communications initiated which did not require a response from others and on the percentage of communications initiated with staff.