Introduction Assessment is a critical element of education as it allows for the monitoring, learning, creation of educational programs, and the identification of pupils who require specific services. For deaf and hard hearing learners, participating in meaningful education tests is a multifaceted and complex process (Pizzo & Chilvers, 2019). Assessments that are done well will support growth and learning, while poorly and inaccurately designed assessments have the potential to cause wrong decision-making in schools for deaf and hard of hearing learners. This report, therefore, presents three language assessment instruments for deaf and hard of hearing learners, namely Arizona™-4: Arizona Articulation and Phonology Scale™ Fourth Revision, The American Sign Language Proficiency Assessment (ASL-PA), and Test for Auditory Comprehension of Language—Fourth Edition (TACL-4).

Report 1: Arizona Articulation and Phonology Scale™, Fourth Revision

? Name of Test: Arizona™-4: Arizona Articulation and Phonology Scale™, Fourth Revision

? Author(s): Fudala, Janet Barker, and Stegall, Sheri

? Publisher's Name and Address: Western Psychological Services. 625 Alaska Avenue, Torrance, CA 90503-5124; Telephone: 800-648-8857; FAX: 424-201-6950; E-mail: [email protected]; Web: http://www.wpspublish.com

? Date of Publication: 2017

? Purpose of Test: The primary purpose of this assessment tool is to evaluate articulatory and phonology capabilities for the target age bracket. Arizona?4 is used for the measurement of speech intelligibility, phonological impairment, and articulatory impairment.

Secondary purposes of the instrument are to;

· Understand and describe the level of an individual's articulatory capability and the general speech intelligence for both sing word and connected speech

· Compare an individual's abilities for single-word and connected speech articulation

· Determine the level to which language sound impairment might affect the individuals' articulation deficient and determine the particular types of sound error patterns that present

· Facilitate the early identification of phonological development challenges and establish whether treatment services would be beneficial

· Identify and prioritize speech goals for customized intervention by analyzing the specific language deficient the individual presents

· Monitor improvement in the speech of an examinee throughout the intervention

· Evaluate the degree to which misarticulated sounds present for an individual and determine the effect of these challenges to everyday speech and whether additional assessment or intervention is needed (Fudala & Stegall, 2017).

? Target population(s): the target population needs speech and source services within a clinical setting. There is a need to design and develop treatment plans for them.

? Target Age Range: 18 months to 21 years, 11 months

? Skills/Knowledge tested: Word Articulation, Phonology, and Sentence Articulation

? Test Administration format: Manually by an individual

? Length of Time required: 5–20 minutes

? Type of data obtained (raw score, standard score, etc.): The Arizona?4 offers five scores as follows:

·...

The kit is available in various packages with varying pricing to suit the various uses and needs (Fudala, 2000). The tool has supplemental qualitative tasks which help for in-depth interpretation of the scores, thus help clinicians develop treatment plans that are personalized to the individual.
Weaknesses

Interpreting the scores might be difficult for individual teachers, parents, and interviewees. Often a clinician with experience on the tool will be required to interpret the report.

Report 2: The American Sign Language...…for testing is kept at the minimum and the learner is tested for the items that are optimal for their capability level (Carrow-Woolfolk, 2014)

· For each item in the assessment, it has been reevaluated using conventional item analyses to allow for both good items and the differential analyses, which help find and eradicate any potentially biased items

· It is fairly recent as the normative language was collected in 2012 and 2013.

Weaknesses

· The test allows for only a limited and fairly narrow age bracket, three years to 12 years, and this is even though this age bracket has been expended in the fourth edition.

· Interpretation of the results would require an expert with the ASL tool.

Conclusion

This discussion involves three assessment instruments 1) Arizona™-4: Arizona Articulation and Phonology Scale™ Fourth Revision, 2) The American Sign Language Proficiency Assessment (ASL-PA), and 3) Test for Auditory Comprehension of Language—Fourth Edition (TACL-4). These assessment instruments were chosen to represent the various aspects of deaf and hard of hearing, namely, oral, signage, and both. The Arizona-4 test was selected to represent the oral aspect, ASL-PA was selected to represent the sign language aspect, and TACL-4 was selected to represent auditory and sign language. For all the three tests, they are easy to administer as they can be administered with the examinee, and they each come with a manual. However, scoring each is complex as an experienced person is required to interpret the results.

Assessment tests can be either norm-referenced or criterion-referenced. For all the three tests included in this paper, they are norm-referenced. Norm-referenced tests are those that usually cover a broad range of content, but they often mismatch what is taught, and that is tested (Bond, 1996). Norm-referenced tests are used for the comparisons of individual performance to that of a group. On the other hand, criterion-referenced assessments are used to determine how well the examinee…