Deaf students' receptive and expressive American sign language skills: Comparisons and relations

Abstract

This article presents receptive and expressive American Sign Language skills of 85 students, 6 through 22 years of age at a residential school for the deaf using the American Sign Language Receptive Skills Test and the Ozcaliskan Motion Stimuli. Results are presented by ages and indicate that students' receptive skills increased with age and were still developing across this age range. Students' expressive skills, specifically classifier production, increased with age but did not approach adult-like performance. On both measures, deaf children with deaf parents scored higher than their peers with hearing parents and many components of the measures significantly correlated. These results suggest that these two measures provide a well-rounded snapshot of individual students' American Sign Language skills.