Fluency in American sign language

I used two experimental designs to investigate the perception of fluency by native Deaf signers. In experiment 1, seven native signers described the signing ability of other native signers judged to have a wide range of signing ability. The judges provided numerical ratings and descriptions of signing skill. These positive and negative descriptions were used in experiment 2 to determine if the judgments were reliable, valid, and predictive of fluency. In this study a different group of five raters judged the same signing samples using 21 pairs of criteria gleaned from experiment 1. Between- and within-group analyses demonstrated that these criteria could be used to reliably judge and predict fluency. Rate of signing was not found to be a crucial criterion for fluency. I discuss implications for the types of sign models used with Deaf children and teaching of ASL to second language users.