Looking beyond the Obvious : Assessing and Understanding Deaf learners.
Mark Marschark.

One of the greatest challenges in assessing the skills of deaf learners – whether in school testing, clinical assessment, or research – is insuring that language is not a barrier. When potential communication problems are eliminated, most assessments assume that deaf and hearing children are much the same. It is often overlooked the background, experiences, and knowledge of deaf students may not be the same as that of hearing students, regardless of the language or mode of communication they use. In order to fully understand the characteristics of deaf learners, including both strengths and weaknesses, it is necessary to understand the interactions of cognitive, social, and linguistic factors in the environment. Without that information, we cannot provide an appropriate educations and assessments of children who are deaf. Research from several areas will be discussed demonstrating that from attention to memory and from social interaction to intelligence, there are real, qualitative and quantitative differences between deaf and hearing learners. This is not a negative statement, and it does not mean that deaf students are in any way deficient. It is statement that acknowledges differences and is supported by a variety of research findings. We can use such findings to develop assessment tools that are more fair and educational methods that are more effective. Ignoring such differences helps no one.