title: Development of American Sign Language Guidelines for K-12 Academic Assessments.
abstract: The U.S. federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was enacted with goals of closing achievement gaps and providing all students with access to equitable and high-quality instruction. One requirement of ESSA is annual statewide testing of students in grades 3-8 and once in high school. Some students, including many deaf or hard-of-hearing (D/HH) students, are eligible to use test supports, in the form of accommodations and accessibility tools, during state testing. Although technology allows accommodations and accessibility tools to be embedded within a digital assessment system, the success of this approach depends on the ability of test developers to appropriately represent content in accommodated forms. The Guidelines for Accessible Assessment Project (GAAP) sought to develop evidence- and consensus-based guidelines for representing test content in American Sign Language. In this article, we present an overview of GAAP, review of the literature, rationale, qualitative and quantitative research findings, and lessons learned.
authors.forename: Jennifer A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Higgins
authors.affiliation: Research Matters, LLC.
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Famularo
authors.affiliation: The University of Texas at Austin.
authors.forename: Stephanie W
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Cawthon
authors.affiliation: Rochester Institute of Technology.
authors.forename: Christopher A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Kurz
authors.affiliation: The Center for Research and Training at The Learning Center for the Deaf, and.
authors.forename: Jeanne E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Reis
authors.affiliation: Maryland School for the Deaf.
authors.forename: Lori M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Moers
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D003638:Deafness; D004521:Educational Measurement; D006801:Humans; D019986:Persons with Hearing Disabilities; D012813:Sign Language; D014481:United States