title: Longitudinal Receptive American Sign Language Skills Across a Diverse Deaf Student Body.
abstract: This article presents results of a longitudinal study of receptive American Sign Language (ASL) skills for a large portion of the student body at a residential school for the deaf across four consecutive years. Scores were analyzed by age, gender, parental hearing status, years attending the residential school, and presence of a disability (i.e., deaf with a disability). Years 1 through 4 included the ASL Receptive Skills Test (ASL-RST); Years 2 through 4 also included the Receptive Test of ASL (RT-ASL). Student performance for both measures positively correlated with age; deaf students with deaf parents scored higher than their same-age peers with hearing parents in some instances but not others; and those with a documented disability tended to score lower than their peers without disabilities. These results provide longitudinal findings across a diverse segment of the deaf/hard of hearing residential school population.
authors: Valdosta State University jbealvarez@valdosta.edu.
authors: Jennifer S
authors: JS
authors: Beal-Alvarez
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D060345:Education of Persons with Hearing Disabilities / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D019986:Persons with Hearing Disabilities; D012813:Sign Language; D013334:Students; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult