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Assessing Literacy in Deaf Individuals pp 3–19Cite as

The “Toolkit Project”: Introduction

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Abstract

This chapter presents the rational for the establishment of the VL2 Psychometric Toolkit, beginning with a brief history of psychometric testing with deaf individuals and the complexities of using psychometric instruments with this population. The chapter explains the goal of developing a set of achievement, cognitive, and language instruments which could be administered to a sample of deaf individuals as a set, rather than piecemeal, allowing for investigation of relationships among the areas of skill and functioning. Legal and ethical reasons that such investigations are need are reviewed, as is the unique nature of the relationship between literacy and cognitive functioning in this population. The cognitive and achievement constructs and the assessments used to evaluate them are introduced. This chapter functions as a brief introduction to the overall VL2 Psychometric Toolkit Project and its goal of providing information for a wide range of consumers, including researchers, clinicians, and students in many fields, concerning cognitive functioning, learning, and academic achievement, and the interactions among these parameters, in signing deaf individuals.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Differential item functioning (DIF) occurs when a test item is rendered systematically more difficult (or easy), for a particular group of examinees due to some biasing aspect of its format or content. For example, reading a comprehension passage about the joys of listening to a Bach concerto may render higher levels of difficulty for comprehension items directed to the passage for individuals with no musical experience, yielding DIF.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Doctor Halper & Associates, 10560 Main Street, Suite 201, Fairfax, VA, 22030, USA

    Elizabeth Halper

  2. Science of Learning Center on Visual Language and Visual Learning, Gallaudet University, SLCC 1223, 800 Florida Avenue, NE, Washington, DC, 20002, USA

    Thomas Allen

  3. Department of Psychology, Gallaudet University, 800 Florida Avenue, NE, Washington, DC, 20002, USA

    Donna A. Morere

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  1. Elizabeth Halper
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  2. Thomas Allen
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  3. Donna A. Morere
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Correspondence to Thomas Allen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Department of Psychology, Gallaudet University, Florida Avenue, NE 800, Washington, 20002, District of Columbia, USA

    Donna Morere

  2. , Science of Learning Center on, Gallaudet University, Florida Avenue, NE 800, Washington, 20002, District of Columbia, USA

    Thomas Allen

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Halper, E., Allen, T., Morere, D.A. (2012). The “Toolkit Project”: Introduction. In: Morere, D., Allen, T. (eds) Assessing Literacy in Deaf Individuals. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5269-0_1

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