The VCSL Checklist is the only standardized measure of American Sign Language (ASL) acquisition for

young children in the United States. It was created for use by educators (teachers, early interventionists,
Deaf mentors) who work with signing children from birth through five years of age. It can be used with
older children who are language delayed to identify strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in development.
The VCSL Checklist monitors children’s sign language acquisition and helps determine if children are
developmentally on track. It provides an indication of whether a child’s language is typical, advanced, or
delayed compared to norms, which were created during the standardization process. The VCSL Checklist
was based on informal ASL checklists that had been created by Schools for the Deaf, Deaf Canadian
organizations, and university researchers. However, none of these informal measures included norms.
The VCSL Checklist focused on incorporating existing knowledge and moving it to the next level by
collecting data, piloting, and then creating norms based on typically developing native-signing Deaf and
hard of hearing children from birth through the age of 5.

Rationale and Content: Some sign language checklists and assessment measures have been created
based on existing spoken language assessments that were validated on hearing populations. For
example, the McArthur Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) for ASL is based on the English CDI
(Fenson et al., 2000). It uses a parental report form that allows parents to check their child’s first words
and early grammatical structures. Very few instruments of a standardized nature have been developed
for documenting Deaf and hard of hearing children’s visual language development and growth trajectory
in ASL. Those that have been funded to create new assessments focused mainly on K-12 students and,
unfortunately, the assessments were never widely distributed by developers. The field of Deaf Education
needed a comprehensive checklist of visual language development to help teachers establish learning
goals, identify gaps in language development, and plan the learning environment so that children could
acquire language in developmentally appropriate social contexts.

Test Development and Standardization: Psychologists, linguists, and educators collected and evaluated
existing checklists of typical linguistic ASL milestones. These items were aggregated and merged into one
draft checklist. Then the VCSL Checklist team, which included three ASL/English bilingual university
faculty (both a deaf and a hearing teacher preparation faculty member and a hearing psychologist)
collaborated with teachers of the deaf in instrument development. The VCSL Checklist went through
several phases to ascertain its effectiveness, accuracy, and success. Table 1 describes the different
phases and activities during development.

Table 1: VCSL Checklist Timeline of Development

Phases of Development Activities Results

Year One -Merging of existing ASL -Teachers liked the
development checklists usability of the VCSL and
2011
preferred it for classroom
-A two-year pilot by
use over more complex
teachers at Kendall
diagnostic ASL assessment
 Demonstration Elementary instruments
School (KDES)

-A literature review and

feedback by linguists and
psychologists
Year Two -Review by ASL/English -Categories were created
Early Childhood Educators upon recommendation by
2012
of deaf and hard of hearing teachers: “not yet
students emerging,” “emerging,”
“inconsistent use,” or
-Second review by KDES
“mastered.”
committee of revised VCSL
Checklist -Modification of VCSL
items based on feedback
-Creation of a signed
glossary uploaded to  
YouTube
Years Three and Four -Validation and -Dissemination of Version
standardization of the One, the manual, and
2012 - 2013
VCSL Checklist DVDs to schools and
teachers who assisted in
-Development of the
the validation and
instructional manual
standardization process
-Translation and filming of
-Distribution by the Center
the manual into ASL
for Visual Languages and
-Production of DVDs Visual Learning (VL2) at
Gallaudet University
 
Years -Production of Version 2 -Dissemination of Version
2 and updated manual in
2014 - 2015 -Filming of children signing
both ASL and English, and a
each item on the VCSL
DVD that includes new
Checklist
examples of children
-Production of DVDs producing the items on the
VCSL
-Production of training
materials -Trainings offered on the
administration and scoring
of the VCSL by research
team

 
Next Steps -Plan the second validation  
 study and prepare Version
3

 
Initial Validation and Standardization
To conduct the validation and standardization of the VCSL Checklist, we created and online registration
process which included informed consent forms, instructions, and background questionnaires to gather
data about the teachers, families and children in the norming group. When teachers agreed to
participate, they were entered into the registration system and sent a password and a login ID to
complete the checklist. All of the children included in the study had their own identification number.
Teachers, sometimes in conjunction with a child’s parents, evaluated the child’s language use and
completed the online VCSL Checklist based on the child’s current skills. After the information was
submitted, the data were merged into the database. Data continued to be collected throughout 2012 on
children from birth to 5 years 11 months.A column labeled “Do Not Understand the Item” was included.
In addition, at the end of each section there was an open comment section for participants to suggest
any missing items or any other concerns.

Figure 1: Example of the Visual Communication and Sign Language Checklist

Norming Group

The VCSL Checklist was normed on native-signing Deaf and hard of hearing children who were acquiring
visual language typically as determined by their teachers. The norming group resulted in a total of 83
deaf and hard of hearing children. There were 48 girls and 35 boys. The majority of the children were
reported as Caucasian, with 10 African American, 8 Latino, 2 Native American, 2 Asian Americans, and 1
child reported as “Unknown.”

 
AGE NUMBER OF CHILDREN
Table 2: Overview of
Birth – 12 months 6 norming group for VCSL
1 year – 2 years 8  
2 years – 3 years 11
3 years – 4 years 11
4 years – 5 years 25
5 years – 5 years 11 months 23
 

Reporting Norms
Items were ordered based on the ages found for each quartile, from youngest to oldest. Norms report
the ages found for each quartile. The range of ages across the quartiles tends to be small, varying from
less than a 1-month variation to an 8-month variation. Most items have ranges of 3 to 5 months
between the 25th and the 75th percentiles. All items were reported as mastered within the age range of
the VCSL Checklist. 

Figure 2: Reported
norms of the Visual Communication and Sign Language Checklist

Strengths and weaknesses of the VCSL

The VCSL is a standardized measure of early sign language acquisition and this should be helpful in
helping children establish a strong language base upon which to learn. We would like to conduct a
second round of data collection with the goal to expand the data set, which would increase the
reliability of the assessment. Some items in the upper age range fall into quartiles that are 8 months in
range. We would like to reduce this. We would also like to uncover any items that may be missing in the
current checklist.

AUTHOR
Summarized by Laurene Simms, Sharon Baker, and Diane Clark (2015).

For more information or to order the assessment please email  vcsl@gallaudet.edu or visit the  Visual
Communication and Sign Language Checklist’s (VCSL) website.

For the training of the VCSL please contact either  Laurene Simms or  Diane Clark at Gallaudet University,
or  Sharon Baker at the University of Tulsa.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fenson et al. (2000). The MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories. http://mb-

cdi.stanford.edu/

Simms, L., Baker, S., & Clark, M. D. (2013). The Standardized Visual Communication and Sign Language
Checklist for Signing Children. Sign Language Studies, 14, 1, 101-124.