Specialist assessments for deaf children and young people

British Ability Scales (BAS3)

• Age range: 3 to 17
• Assessment areas: Intellectual functioning; verbal ability; non-verbal reasoning; spatial ability
• Can be used by: Educational and clinical psychologists

Cognitive Ability Tests (CAT4)

• Age range: 7 to 17
• Assessment areas: Reasoning ability; academic potential
• Can be used by: Teachers

Griffiths III

• Age range: 0 to 6
• Assessment areas: Overall development; foundations of learning; language and communication; eye and hand coordination; personal, social and emotional development; gross motor skills
• Can be used by: Paediatricians and health professionals who have received training

Non-Verbal Reasoning (NVRT)

• Age range: 8 to 14
• Assessment areas: Spatial abilities; reasoning skills
• Can be used by: Teachers

Raven's Educational Matrices

• Age range: 4 to 18
• Assessment areas: Verbal and non-verbal reasoning
• Can be used by: Any relevant professional

Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (TONI-4)

• Age range: 6 and up
• Assessment areas: Non-verbal intelligence
• Can be used by: Psychologists and teachers

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC V UK)

• Age range: 6 to 16
• Assessment areas: Cognitive functioning; perceptual reasoning; verbal comprehension; working memory; processing speed
• Can be used by: Registered HCPC practitioner psychologists

Wechsler Non-Verbal Scale of Ability (WNV)

• Age range: 4 to 21
• Assessment areas: Non-verbal cognitive ability
• Can be used by: Registered HCPC practitioner psychologists

Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI-IV)

• Age range: 2 to 7
• Assessment areas: Cognitive ability
• Can be used by: Registered Health and Care Professionals Council (HCPC) practitioner psychologists

Children’s Rating of Speech Sounds (CROSS)

• Age range: Children with at least emerging speech
• Assessment areas: Phonology; speech in single words and sentences
• Can be used by: Speech and language therapists; Teachers of the Deaf

Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals Preschool-3 (CELF Preschool-3)

• Age range: 3 to 6
• Assessment areas: Core language; receptive and expressive language; language content and structure; academic language readiness; emerging literacy
• Can be used by: Speech and language therapists; educational psychologists

MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs)

• Age range: 8 to 37 months
• Assessment areas: Comprehension, word production, symbolic and communicative gesture; early stages of grammar
• Can be used by: Parents; speech and language therapists; Teachers of the Deaf

Pragmatics Profile of Everyday Communication Skills in Children

• Age range: 9 months to 10 years; there is also a version for adults that can be used with secondary aged and post-16 students
• Assessment areas: Communicative functions; responses to communication; interaction and conversation; contextual variation
• Can be used by: All professionals

Preschool Language Scale (PLS-5 UK)

• Age range: 0 to 7
• Assessment areas: Developmental language from pre-verbal, interaction-based skills to emerging language and early literacy
• Can be used by: Speech and language therapists; educational psychologists

Success from the Start: A developmental resource for families of deaf children aged 0 to 3

• Age range: 0 to 3
• Assessment areas: Communication and language; listening and vocalising; social development and wellbeing; play and understanding; physical development
• Can be used by: Parents with support from Teachers of the Deaf or other professionals

Teddy Talk Test

• Age range: 18 months to 5 years
• Assessment areas: Speech and language development; play and social skills; understanding of spoken language; taking and communication; speech sound development
• Can be used by: Any care-giving adult or early years professional interested in monitoring children’s communication skills

Wellcomm Early Years: The complete speech and language toolkit

• Age range: 6 months to 6 years
• Assessment areas: Delayed language skills
• Can be used by: Early years practitioners; learning needs/support coordinators; teaching assistants; speech and language therapists; Teachers of the Deaf

Receptive language skills

Assessing British Sign Language Development Receptive Skills Test

• Age range: 3 to 13
• Assessment areas: Receptive vocabulary for British Sign Language (BSL) users
• Can be used by: Professional with at least Level 2 BSL and experience in testing

British Picture Vocabulary Scale (BPVS)

• Age range: 3 to 16
• Assessment areas: Receptive vocabulary
• Can be used by: Speech and language therapists; any relevant professional using the manual

Prawf Geirfa Cymraeg

• Age range: 7 to 15
• Assessment areas: Receptive vocabulary for Welsh-speaking children
• Can be used by: Teachers and professionals with good knowledge of Welsh

Test for Reception of Grammar (TROG)

• Age range: 4 and up
• Assessment areas: Understanding English grammatical structures
• Can be used by: Speech and language therapists; psychologists; Teachers of the Deaf

Expressive language skills

Assessing BSL Development: Production Test (Narrative Skills)

• Age range: 4 to 11
• Assessment areas: Expressive language ability in British Sign Language (BSL); ability to remember and structure a narrative and use aspects of BSL grammar
• Can be used by: BSL users with at least a Level 2 qualification who have successfully completed the related certified course

Bus Story Test (Renfrew Language Scales)

• Age range: 3 to 8
• Assessment areas: Oral narrative skills
• Can be used by: Teachers; speech and language therapists

Dorset Assessment of Syntactic Structures (DASS)

• Age range: 7 and up
• Assessment areas: Linguistic level of expressive language in terms of clause, phrase and word levels
• Can be used by: Teachers; speech and language therapists

Renfrew Action Picture Test

• Age range: 3 to 8
• Assessment areas: Words used to convey information (nouns, verbs, prepositions); present, past and future tenses; irregular forms of plural and past tenses; simple and complex sentence construction; and passive voice
• Can be used by: Any relevant professional using the manual

Renfrew Expressive Vocabulary Test

• Age range: 3 to 11
• Assessment areas: Expressive vocabulary and single-word production
• Can be used by: Specialist teachers; speech and language therapists; educational psychologists

South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic Structures (STASS)

• Age range: 3 to 7
• Assessment areas: Expressive language gaps
• Can be used by: Teachers and professionals familiar with the grammatical features of English

Receptive and expressive language skills

Assessment of Comprehension and Expression

• Age range: 6 to 11
• Assessment areas: Verbal comprehension; expression and grammar; aspects of semantic and pragmatic knowledge
• Can be used by: Speech and language therapists, educational psychologists and other professionals who are familiar with standardised testing and have a knowledge of language structure

Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF)

• Age range: 5 to 21
• Assessment areas: Core language; receptive language; expressive language; language content; language structure; language memory
• Can be used by: Speech and language therapists; educational psychologists

Derbyshire Language Scheme

• Age range: All ages
• Assessment areas: Early language skills; receptive and expressive skills
• Can be used by: Not specified, but there is a 3-day course that professionals can attend to learn how to use the scheme

New Reynell Developmental Language Scales (NRDLS)

• Age range: 3 to 7
• Assessment areas: Understanding and use of language; production and reception skills
• Can be used by: Speech and language therapists; specialist teachers and educational psychologists

Teaching Talking

• Age range: 1 to 8
• Assessment areas: Spoken language development
• Can be used by: Teachers of the Deaf; teachers; speech and language therapists

Wellcomm Primary: The complete speech and language toolkit

• Age range: 6 to 11
• Assessment areas: Delayed language skills
• Can be used by: Learning needs/support coordinators; teachers; teaching assistants; speech and language therapists; Teachers of the Deaf

AB Short Word List for Parrot

• Age range: 6 and up (for those with appropriate vocabulary)
• Assessment areas: Speech recognition
• Can be used by: Any appropriate professional using the manual

Bamford-Kowal-Bench (BKB) Sentence Test

• Age range: 5 and up
• Assessment areas: How much a child received by audition alone and how much they rely on lip-reading
• Can be used by: Professionals working with deaf children

English as an Additional Language (EAL) Toy Test

• Age range: 2 and up
• Assessment areas: Speech discrimination for children who use EAL
• Can be used by: Teachers of the Deaf; educational audiologists; audiologists

Listening Inventories for Education Revised (LIFE-R)

• Age range: 7 to 14
• Assessment areas: Quality of the classroom listening environment
• Can be used by: Audiologists; educational audiologists; speech and language therapists; Teachers of the Deaf

Manchester Junior Word list

• Age range: 6 and up
• Assessment areas: Speech discrimination
• Can be used by: Any appropriate professional using the manual

Manchester Picture Test

• Age range: Older children where toy tests are not appropriate
• Assessment areas: Speech discrimination; listening difficulties
• Can be used by: Any appropriate professional using the manual

McCormick Toy Test

• Age range: 2 and up
• Assessment areas: Speech discrimination
• Can be used by: Teachers of the Deaf; educational audiologists; audiologists

Meaningful Auditory Integration Scale (MAIS)

• Age range: Early years to adult
• Assessment areas: Child's adaptation to hearing aid or implant; vocalisation behaviour; alerting to sounds; deriving meaning from sound
• Can be used by: Parents; professionals working with deaf children

Nottingham Auditory Milestones (NAMES)

• Age range: First 3 years after cochlear implantation (and aged 2 to 3 years at time of operation)
• Assessment areas: Development of active listening, understanding, auditory memory and sequencing after implantation
• Can be used by: Teachers of the Deaf; speech and language therapists; other professionals; parents

Parents' Evaluation of Aural/Oral Performance of Children (PEACH)

• Age range: Birth to school years
• Assessment areas: Effectiveness of a child’s use of hearing in real-world environments
• Can be used by: Parents with audiologists and Teachers of the Deaf

Teachers' Evaluation of Aural/Oral Performance of Children and Ease of Listening (TEACH) and TEACH

• Age range: Pre-school and school-aged children
• Assessment areas: Effectiveness of a child’s use of hearing in real-world environments
• Can be used by: Teachers; Teachers of the Deaf

Access Maths Tests (AMT)

• Age range: 11 to 16
• Assessment areas: Mathematical skills and areas of improvement
• Can be used by: Teachers (linked to the curriculum in England)

Boehm Test of Basic Concepts (Boehm-3)

• Age range: 5 to 7
• Assessment areas: Basic relational concepts such as time, space and amount; verbal instructions necessary for early school achievement
• Can be used by: Any relevant professional

Boehm Test of Basic Concepts (Boehm-3) Preschool

• Age range: 3 to 5
• Assessment areas: Basic relational concepts
• Can be used by: Any relevant professional

KeyMaths3 UK

• Age range: 6 to 16
• Assessment areas: basic mathematical concepts, operations (computational skills) and applications (problem-solving)
• Can be used by: Teachers of the Deaf or speech and language therapists with a specialism in special educational needs, specific learning difficulties or another relevant field (must hold a postgraduate diploma or Master's degree)

New Progress in Understanding Mathematics Assessment (PUMA)

• Age range: 4 to 11
• Assessment areas: Benchmark performance and track progress against national averages in maths
• Can be used by: Mainly for teachers using the maths curriculum in England, but can be used by teachers in other UK nations as well. Scottish version under development.

Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT-5) Mathematics

• Age range: 5 and up
• Assessment areas: Math computation; ability to count, identify numbers, solve simple oral math problems and calculate written math problems
• Can be used by: Teachers of the Deaf; speech and language therapists; psychologists

Access Reading Tests (ART)

• Age range: 10 to 16
• Assessment areas: Reading skills and areas for improvement
• Can be used by: Teachers

Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP-2)

• Age range: 4 to 24
• Assessment areas: Phonological awareness, memory and naming
• Can be used by: Teachers

Concepts of Print

• Age range: 4 to 6
• Assessment areas: Understanding of how a book works, the conventions of print, terminology needed for learning to read, and simple punctuation marks
• Can be used by: Teachers

New Group Reading Test (NGRT)

• Age range: 5 to 16
• Assessment areas: Reading and comprehension skills, including phonics
• Can be used by: Teachers

New Progress in Reading Assessment (PiRA)

• Age range: 4 to 11
• Assessment areas: Reading ages
• Can be used by: Teachers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland

New Progress in Reading Assessment (PiRA) for Scotland

• Age range: 4 to 11
• Assessment areas: Reading ages
• Can be used by: Teachers in Scotland

Salford Sentence Reading and Comprehension Test

• Age range: 5 to 16
• Assessment areas: Verbal reading and comprehension; reading accuracy
• Can be used by: Teachers

Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT-III UK)

• Age range: 4 to 25
• Assessment areas: Untimed single-word accuracy; reading comprehension; and reading speed
• Can be used by: Psychologists

Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT 5) Reading

• Age range: 5 and up
• Assessment areas: Word reading; sentence comprehension; spelling
• Can be used by: Teachers with a postgraduate qualification in special educational needs

York Assessment of Reading Comprehension (YARC)

• Age range: 4 to 16
• Assessment areas: Reading comprehension; oral decoding (reading accuracy); fluency (reading rate); text comprehension skills
• Can be used by: Teachers

Adolescent Anger Rating Scale (AARS)

• Age range: 11 to 19
• Assessment areas: Level and type of teenage response to anger
• Can be used by: Psychologists

Eyberg Child Behaviour Inventory (ECBI)

• Age range: 2 to 16 years
• Assessment areas: Behaviour at home as reported by parents or carers
• Can be used by: Parents

Pathways to Independence

• Age range: Young children, teenagers and adults
• Assessment areas: Competency skills for independent living
• Can be used by: Any relevant professional

Special Needs Assessment Profile (Behaviour) (SNAP-B)

• Age range: 5 to 16
• Assessment areas: Social and emotional and behavioural difficulties
• Can be used by: Any relevant professional

Social-Emotional Developmental Age Level (SEDAL)

• Age range: 0 to 14
• Assessment areas: Social-emotional progress
• Can be used by: Any relevant professional, preferably with experience of testing

Sutter Eyberg Student Behaviour Inventory, Revised (SESBI-R)

• Age range: 2 to 16
• Assessment areas: Behaviour in school as reported by teachers
• Can be used by: A professional with a degree from an accredited 4-year college or university in psychology, counselling, speech-language pathology, or a closely related field

Test of Early Written Language (TEWL-3)

• Age range: 4 to 11
• Assessment areas: Basic, contextual and overall writing skills
• Can be used by: Relevant professionals with an MA degree

Test of Written Language (TOWL-4)

• Age range: 9 to 17
• Assessment areas: Conventional, linguistic and conceptual aspects of writing
• Can be used by: Relevant professionals with an MA degree