Language disorder in deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH) children: Typical acquisition and profiles of specific language impairment

There is a need for sign language development assessments that have utility in the educational and clinical setting for discriminating between typical language acquisition from atypical language acquisition. While procedures have been used for research purposes, they require specialized training and/or require an extensive amount of time to analyze. There are a limited number of available assessments designed for assessment in real-world educational settings, including checklists for early childhood or assessment of specific areas (e.g., receptive ASL syntax). They have a restricted scope of age range or domains of language skills, however. The current study investigates a variety of language development measures to identify effective and efficient ways of differentiating typical from disordered sign language development.