Measuring Deaf Learners’ Language Progress in School

Abstract

The needs of increasingly diverse deaf learners in special schools and mainstream programs pose a challenge to researchers and practitioners, especially when it comes to assessment. There has been progress in developing standardized psychometric tests that are more appropriate for deaf children, for example in the form of sign language assessments. However, these tests continue to have certain limitations: they provide information about a child’s learning outcome but not the learning process, and children have a limited opportunity to contribute to the assessment process. This chapter highlights the potential of using dynamic assessment (DA), an interactive approach to psychological assessment that embeds intervention within the assessment procedure, with deaf learners. After providing background on language assessment of deaf learners and an introduction to the concept behind DA, the author discusses the relevant research and examines ways for teachers to make DA meaningful in the classroom.