Summarized by Tobias Haug (2010).

For further information regarding the ASL Receptive Skills Test, please contact  Charlotte Enns at the University of Manitoba, Canada.

 

Enns, C., & Zimmer, K. (2009).  Research study: Adapting the British Sign Language Receptive Skills Test into American Sign Language. Summary Report. Retrieved on June 19, 2010.

 
Haug, T. (2011). Adaptation and Evaluation of a German Sign Language Test - A Computer-Based Receptive Skills Test for Deaf Children Ages 4-8 Years Old. Hamburg:  Hamburg University Press.

 

Herman, R., Holmes, S., & Woll, B. (1999). Assessing BSL Development - Receptive Skills Test. Coleford, UK:  The Forest Bookshop.

American Sign Language Receptive Skills Test

The American Sign Language (ASL) Receptive Skills Test is an adaptation of the  British Sign Language (BSL) Receptive Skills Test (Herman, Holmes, & Woll, 1999). The purpose of the ASL Receptive Skills Test is to monitor/test the sign language development of deaf children in bilingual deaf education programs (Enns & Zimmer, 2009).
  

The adapted ASL-RST is aimed at the same age group as the original BSL test (4-13 year-olds). In the first step of adapting the BSL test to ASL was to determine whether any items needed to be changed and new items added, and also to create new test materials, i.e. a picture response book and a video in ASL. This was done in close collaboration with a panel of experts consisting of sign language specialists and native ASL users.
 

Once the test was adapted to ASL, a pilot study was conducted with 47 deaf children aged between 4 and 13 years old. All 47 deaf children had deaf parents and used ASL since birth. Children were tested from four different school sites.
 

The results of the pilot indicated that, although the adapted items discriminated across age, the test was “too easy” for children above 10 years old. Similar results were found in a study adapting the BSL test to  German Sign Language (Haug, 2011).
 

Table 1: Pilot test results (N = 47) (Enns & Zimmer, 2009)

Age in years	Number of children	Mean Raw Score (41) and Range
4	3	16.34 (14-19)
5	4	27.25 (17-33)
6	6	32.30 (23-36)
7 & 8	8	33.64 (29-36)
9	7	35.57 (34-39)
10 & 11	10	37.10 (35-41)
12 & 13	9	37.40 (36-40)

In collaboration with Ros Herman, the primary author of the BSL Receptive Skills Test, it was decided to make some revisions to the adapted ASL test. These revisions resulted in changes to the distractor drawings (11 items), signed stimulus (4 items), or both (8 items), to a total of 23 of the original test items.

 

In a next step, the revised test will be piloted with 30 deaf children in order to check whether the revisions worked. After this pilot, a norming study is planned with at least 20 children in each age group (see Table 1).