A number of instrument pertaining specifically to the assesment of communication skills are also

summarized in table 9.1. the peabody picture vocabulary test (PPVT) (Dunn,1965) has been as used
with some frequency with very young (Scerer, 1983) as well as older hearing impaired children.
While it is commonly used to yield an estimate receptive vocabulary, sullivan(1982) suggest that it
may in fact measure visual associaton skills instead. The Reynel Developmental language Scales-
Revised(RDLS-R) (Reynell1977) is an instrument developed in Britain to measure both expressive
and receptive language ability. The test of lenguage development (TOLD) (Newcomer &
Hammill,1977) also measure receptive and expressive vocabulary involving grammatical and
morphological elements. Watson et al. (1982) carried out a study in which the RDLS-R and the TOLD
were administered in a Total Communication format to 25 hearing impaired children to examine the
relationship of language skilss with intellectual ability. The result revealed that neither Reynell nor
TOLD performance increased as a function of age ; that is, there were no defferences in mean
language scores across age group from 6 through 10 years. Significant correlations between the two
language measures and the WISC-R and the HNTLA were in the range of. 40 to .57. multiple
regression procedures revealed that visual memory subtest accounted for more of the variance in
language that other subtest. The authors concluded that variability of language skill in hearinng
impaired childrend may be mediated particularly by nonverbal intelligence and visual memory skills.