A Metalinguistic Awareness Test for ASL/English Bilingual Deaf Children: The TASLA-R

Abstract

In this study, the researchers examined how deaf children could demonstrate their awareness of ASL by evaluating the correctness of ASL signs, sentences and discourse presented in stories in American Sign Language (ASL) signed by deaf native signers. To this end, a metalinguistic awareness test--the Test of American Sign Language—Receptive (TASLA-R), was created with eight short stories. The test consisted of 40 items presented in a multiple choice format test. Each of the 40 test items presented correct and incorrect statements about ASL formation using phonology, semantics, morphology, syntax and pragmatic aspects. One hundred and forty deaf children between the ages of 5 and 21 from four state schools for the deaf were administered the TASLA-R. Significant findings were as follows: 1) As the children got older, there was an increase in their ASL metalinguistic awareness and ability to identify incorrect ASL structures; 2) the deaf children of deaf parents group outperformed the deaf children of hearing group on the TASLA-R; 3) comparisons of TASLA-R scores between the junior high group and the high school were not significant; 4) scores on the TASLA-R showed moderate correlation to the English language, vocabulary and reading comprehension subtests on the Stanford Achievement test, 9 th Hearing Impaired edition. These findings were discussed in relation to Ellen Bialystok’s (2001) theories of metalinguistic uses of language in cognition and language development and in relation to the learning of ASL of bilingual deaf children.