American Sign Language Receptive Skills Test (ASL-RST)

Introduction

The ASL-RST is a standardized assessment of how well deaf children understand American Sign Language grammar. It was developed in response to a long-standing gap in deaf education: there were very few norm-referenced tools for measuring children’s signed language development, even as bilingual (ASL/English) programs grew. Educators needed a way to track ASL acquisition directly rather than relying on informal checklists or English-based measures.

Origins and developers

The ASL-RST is an adaptation of the British Sign Language (BSL) Receptive Skills Test (Herman, Holmes, & Woll, 1999). The adaptation was led by Charlotte Enns of the University of Manitoba, working with Rosalind Herman, one of the original BSL test authors. Their adaptation study was published in the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education in 2011. Adapting the test was more than a translation. The team first determined which items needed changing and which new items to add, then created new materials, including a picture response book and an ASL video, in close collaboration with a panel of sign language specialists and native ASL users.

Purpose and target population

The test is meant to monitor the sign language development of deaf children in bilingual deaf education programs, and it targets the same age group as the original BSL test, described as 4 to 13 years old. It has since been validated with younger children as well. It has also been used in research with older learners, including deaf high school and college students and hearing college students learning ASL as a second language.

How it works

The ASL-RST follows the structure of its BSL predecessor, which has two parts. The first is a vocabulary check. In the BSL version, children name pictures so the assessor can confirm that the child’s signs match those used in the test, ensuring that any errors reflect gaps in grammar rather than vocabulary. This matters for signed languages, where regional sign variation is common.

The second part is the receptive test itself. The child watches a video of a fluent signer producing phrases and sentences. After each one, the child points to the picture that best matches what was signed. The ASL version contains 42 items. These are organized by grammatical feature and progress from simpler to more complex structures. The features include number and distribution, negation, noun–verb distinctions, spatial verbs, size-and-shape specifiers, handling classifiers, and role shift.

Because each item targets a specific grammatical feature, the results show more than an overall score. They reveal which areas of ASL grammar a child has mastered and which are still developing. This helps educators set targeted instructional goals.

Evidence for reliability and validity

The test has strong psychometric support. In a study of 160 deaf children aged 3 to 5, conducted through the Science of Learning Center on Visual Language and Visual Learning (VL2), the overall reliability of the test was .96. Scores differed significantly by age group and by whether families reported regularly signing at home. Item-level analysis showed systematic gains with age and clear differences tied to grammatical complexity. These patterns are what you’d expect from a valid developmental measure.

Research with older groups has also identified consistently difficult areas. A study of deaf high school students, deaf college students, and hearing college-age ASL learners found all four groups averaged about 77% correct, and all scored lowest on number-distribution, spatial verb location, size-and-shape specifiers, and role shift.

Limitations

The ASL-RST measures only receptive grammatical understanding. It does not assess expressive signing, conversational or narrative skills, or broader communicative competence. Its items use short phrases and basic vocabulary, so it is best used alongside other tools to build a complete picture of a child’s ASL abilities. Administration and interpretation also generally call for an examiner who is fluent in ASL and familiar with sign language acquisition.

In short, the ASL-RST is one of the few standardized, research-backed tools for measuring how deaf children comprehend ASL grammar. It gives educators a reliable way to monitor first-language development in bilingual programs and to identify specific grammatical areas that need support.

Enns, C. J. & Herman, R. (2011). Adapting the Assessing British Sign Language Development: Receptive Skills Test into American sign language. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 16(3), pp. 362-374.