1 L1 Sign Language Tests and Assessment Procedures and Evaluation Tobias Haug, Wolfgang Mann, Joanna Hoskin, & Hilary Dumbrill There is a growing interest in sign language assessments documented by the increase in the number of tests developed over the last decade and also by the literature that is now available on this topic. In this chapter we give an overview of tests for assessing deaf children’s signed language skills and discuss challenges related to developing these test as well as to evaluating them in terms of reliability and validity. In addition, we share some experiences on how sign language assessments are used by practitioners. References and links are provided to guide future teachers, researchers, and/or policymakers in their search for further information. 1. Introduction Sign language tests have been developed for different purposes (Haug, 2005) ranging from monitoring deaf children’s sign language development to the assessment of sign language skills in adult learners, who learn a sign language as a second or foreign language, for instance, future interpreters. The term “sign language test for L1 learners” is frequently used to refer to signing deaf children who acquire a sign language at home only in order to differentiate them from adult learners of a sign language, i.e., deaf and hearing adults who learn a sign language as a second or foreign language (e.g., Woll, 2013). However, since also adults can be considered as L1 learners (e.g., codas, deaf adults) as well, we will use the term “young learners” or “early learners” to refer to the linguistically diverse group of deaf and hearing signing children who acquire a sign language from birth or during childhood (up to 6 years old). For the purpose of this chapter, we will only focus on signing children while assessment of adult learners will be brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Roehampton University Research Repository