Assessing Signed Language Skills in Bi-/Multilingual, Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children

Abstract

Providing appropriate and evidence-based services for linguistically diverse, bilingual, and multimodal deaf and/or hard-of-hearing (D/HH) children is an important aspect of education and intervention programs. The increasing linguistic diversity of D/HH children creates challenges for professionals who need to understand and document these children’s linguistic systems through appropriate and informative assessment of children’s speech, and spoken language, and/or sign language skills. However, assessment can prove challenging, particularly when a child’s language environment contains more than one language in one or more modality. In this chapter, areas of assessment relevant to bilingual D/HH children are discussed to guide practitioners’ decisions on selecting and using appropriate assessment materials and approaches. Special focus is given to assessment considerations that can inform practice when assessment resources for a particular language are not available.