Longitudinal Receptive American Sign Language Skills Across a Diverse Deaf Student Body.

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Developmental Psychology
• Education

Background:

• Residential schools are crucial environments for deaf students' language acquisition.
• Longitudinal data on receptive American Sign Language (ASL) skills are limited.
• Understanding factors influencing ASL development is vital for educational interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To longitudinally assess receptive American Sign Language (ASL) skills in deaf students.
• To examine the influence of age, parental hearing status, and disability on ASL acquisition.
• To provide data on ASL development within a residential school setting.

Main Methods:

• A longitudinal study design tracking students over four consecutive academic years.
• Utilized the American Sign Language Receptive Skills Test (ASL-RST) and the Receptive Test of ASL (RT-ASL).
• Analyzed data based on student demographics including age, gender, parental hearing status, years in school, and presence of disability.

Main Results:

• Receptive ASL skills showed a positive correlation with student age across both measures.
• Deaf students with deaf parents sometimes outperformed peers with hearing parents, but not consistently.
• Students with documented disabilities generally scored lower on receptive ASL tests than their peers without disabilities.

Conclusions:

• Age is a significant factor in the development of receptive ASL skills.
• Parental hearing status and the presence of a disability can influence ASL proficiency in deaf students.
• These findings offer valuable longitudinal insights into the ASL development of a diverse deaf/hard of hearing population in residential schools.