From Policy to Practice in Deaf Education: American Sign Language and Spoken English Outcomes of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children in Kansas

Purpose: In the context of the recent expectation for state Early Hearing Detection and Intervention programs to track language milestones of deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children, we examine how to leverage statewide assessment programs for improving language outcomes of DHH children. We present the degree to which DHH children in Kansas are meeting their language milestones for American Sign Language (ASL) and English and the influence of two measurement features. Method: Performance on the ASL/English Language Milestones for 198 children who were DHH (aged 1 to 8) was analyzed for attainment of age-expected language skills and language quotient scores for ASL and English using varying mastery criteria. Results: A small proportion of participants exhibited age-expected language skills (i.e., 20 of 198 for either language, 5 of 102 for ASL, and 16 of 170 for English). Participants exhibited ASL and English skills expected at about half of their chronological age, on average, with large variation across participants. Inclusion of DHH children with additional disabilities and less stringent mastery criterion (i.e., 80% versus 100%) had limited influence on the outcomes. Conclusions: Continued efforts are needed to leverage state assessment results strategically to inform policy decisions and to guide research and educational practices to improve language outcomes.