The need for and challenges of adapting EGRA for students who are deaf and hard-of-hearing

• In Event: Adapting the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) for Students Who are Deaf in the Philippines

Proposal

This presentation will discuss the need in the Philippines for adapting an early grade reading assessment for students who are deaf and hard-of-hearing and the challenges and considerations required in developing and piloting an instrument that meets the needs of that student population while maintaining the rigor and reliability of a traditional EGRA. The presenter will share their experience and lessons learned in adapting an EGRA for students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing in the Philippines.
The availability of assessments for children who are deaf and hard of hearing is limited. As researchers noted in an October 2018 article in the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, "[L]imited information exists on what signed language assessments are available, and if those available are quality assessments" (Henner, et al. 2018). Reasons for the dearth of assessments in American Sign Language (ASL) include "challenges in creating tests that can adequately account for the linguistic features of ASL, the need for examiners to be highly trained and have strong language skills, and prohibitive costs associated with purchasing standardized tests and training examiners on those tests" (Pizzo and Chilvers 2019).
Still, researchers have created some assessment tools to test a variety of fundamental reading skills for students who are deaf and hard-of-hearing—and are currently developing new approaches. Because experts feel that "there is not one assessment that can provide a comprehensive portrait of a child's language and literacy abilities," sign language assessments may take many forms and structures (Pizzo and Chilvers 2019). These may be formal or informal and based on multiple different approaches.
For students in the Philippines who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, implementing partners developed an early grade reading and sign language assessment (EGRA) for the USAID Gabay (Guide): Strengthening Inclusive Education for Blind/Deaf Children project. In March 2020, 165 students in kindergarten to grade 3 participated in a baseline EGRA that assessed students’ skills in Filipino Sign Language (FSL)—including receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary, and sign language comprehension—and English reading—including letter name identification, fingerspelling reproduction, familiar word reading, and sentence reading comprehension. Partners opted for enumerators to sign test content to students live for the receptive vocabulary and language comprehension subtasks, rather than show videos of an enumerator signing the content, due to the fact that learners are “unfamiliar with testing environments” and “their nascent skills in FSL are better supported by live signing of subtasks, so they are better able to intuit context and expression” (STS 2020).

Author

• Stephen Backman, RTI International