Applied Psycholinguistics (2022), 43, 157–175

doi:10.1017/S0142716421000436

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

The sentence repetition task as a measure of

sign language proficiency
Krister Schönström1* and Peter C. Hauser2
1
Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden and 2Center on Culture and
Language, National Technical Institute of the Deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, USA
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

(Received 24 June 2020; revised 18 July 2021; accepted 22 July 2021; first published online 20 September 2021)

Abstract
Sign language research is important for our understanding of languages in general and for
the impact it has on policy and on the lives of deaf people. There is a need for a sign
language proficiency measure, to use as a grouping or continuous variable, both in psy-
cholinguistics and in other sign language research. This article describes the development
of a Swedish Sign Language Sentence Repetition Test (STS-SRT) and the evidence that
supports the validity of the test’s interpretation and use. The STS-SRT was administered
to 44 deaf adults and children, and was shown to have excellent internal reliability
(Cronbach’s alpha of 0.915) and inter-rater reliability (Intraclass Correlation Coefficient
[ICC] = 0.900, p < .001). A linear mixed model analysis revealed that adults scored
20.2% higher than children, and delayed sign language acquisition were associated with
lower scores. As the sign span of sentences increased, participants relied on their implicit
linguistic knowledge to scaffold their sentence repetitions beyond rote memory. The results
provide reliability and validity evidence to support the use of STS-SRT in research as a
measure of STS proficiency.

Keywords: sign language; sentence repetition test; deaf; test development; language assessment

Sign language research has significantly informed basic and applied sciences,
yielding practical implications for both. For example, research on Swedish Sign
Language, Svenskt teckenspråk (henceforth, STS), contributed to the recognition
of STS as a language by the Swedish parliament in 1981 (Proposition 1980/
1981:100) and the consequent implementation of sign bilingualism in the national
educational curriculum. Swedish Sign Language has been a part of deaf bilingual
education for nearly 40 years, both as the language of instruction for deaf pupils
in classrooms, and as a school subject with its own curriculum in Swedish deaf
schools (Mahshie, 1995; Svartholm, 2010). The 2009 Swedish Language Act pro-
claimed STS as equal to other minority languages used in Sweden and emphasized
society’s responsibility toward STS (SFS, 2009:600). This study describes the
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the
terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits
unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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 158 Krister Schönström and Peter C. Hauser

development of the first Sentence Repetition Task (SRT)-based STS proficiency that
provides a score that can be used in future studies as a continuous variable.
Psychometrically sound sign language proficiency assessments have been devel-
oped for different signed languages for first language learners (see Enns et al., 2016;
Paludnevičience et al., 2012 for a review) and second language learners (see Landa &
Clark, 2019; Schönström et al., in press for a review). Hauser et al. (2008) developed
ASL-SRT, for American Sign Language (ASL), based on an English oral repetition
test (Hammill et al., 1994) that required participants to listen to English sentences of
increasing length and morphosyntactic complexity and immediately repeat them
correctly with 100% accuracy. They chose to use the SRT approach because it
can be administered both to children and adults, and because past studies have
shown it to be a good measure of language proficiency. Some have described the
SRT as a global proficiency measure because it involves sentence processing, recon-
struction, and reproduction (Haug et al., 2020; Jessop et al., 2007), while others have
described it as a test of grammatical processing (Hammill et al., 1994; Spada et al.,
2015) and have used it to study children’s syntactic development (e.g., Kidd
et al., 2007).
Spoken language SRTs are sensitive to the developmental proficiency of first
language learners (e.g., Devescovi & Caselli, 2007; Klem et al., 2015) and second
language learners (e.g., Erlam, 2006; Gaillard & Tremblay, 2016; Spada et al.,
2015). Implicit long-term linguistic knowledge – that is, language proficiency –
enhances SRT performance. When native speakers were asked to repeat ungram-
matical sentences, they unconsciously applied their linguistic knowledge and cor-
rected the grammar 91% of the time when they repeated the sentences (Erlam,
2006). This happens because individuals’ language knowledge helps them to scaffold
sentences in working memory so they can hold more information than just rote
memory allows. Relying on rote memory alone, individuals have difficulty with sen-
tences of more than four words (see Haug et al., 2020 and Polišenská et al., 2015 for
discussion). Correct sentence repetitions have been found to positively correlate
with 2–4-year-old children’s mean length of utterances in free speech and verbal
memory span (Devescovi & Caselli, 2007). Further, the accuracy of sentence repe-
titions of 4–5-year-old children depended more on their familiarity with morpho-
syntax and lexical phonology than on their familiarity with semantics or prosody
(Polišenská et al., 2015).
Studies with both language and memory measures have shown that SRTs mea-
sure an underlying unitary language construct rather than a measure of working
memory because they draw upon a wide range of language processing skills
(e.g., Gaillard & Tremblay, 2016; Klem et al., 2015; Tomblin & Zhang, 2006).
Sentence Repetition Test have been claimed to be the best single test for identifying
children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) due to their high specificity and
sensitivity (Archibald & Joanisse, 2009; Conti-Ramsden et al., 2001; Fleckstein et al.,
2016; Stokes et al., 2006). Individuals with SLI perform poorly on SRTs because the
test heavily recruits linguistic processing abilities (Leclercq et al., 2014) although
some have argued that SRTs test memory more than language proficiency
(Borwnell, 1988; Henner et al., 2018). It has been claimed that individuals with
developing language skills or SLI have less accurate sentence repetitions because
they do not have available linguistic knowledge to scaffold sentences in episodic

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 Applied Psycholinguistics 159

memory (Alptekin & Erçetin, 2010; Coughlin & Tremblay, 2013; Van den Noort
et al., 2006).
Hauser et al. (2008) administered the ASL-SRT to deaf and hearing children and
adults and found that native signers more accurately repeated the ASL sentences
than non-native signers. Supalla et al. (2014) analyzed the ASL-SRT error patterns
of native signers and found that fluent signers made more semantic types of errors,
suggesting top-down scaffolding mechanisms are used in working memory to suc-
ceed in the task, whereas less fluent signers made errors that were motoric imitations
of signs (similar phonology) that were ungrammatical or lacked meaning. In a case
study of a deaf adult native ASL signer with SLI, the participant performed poorly
on the ASL-SRT compared to peers, including non-native deaf signers (Quinto-
Pozos et al., 2017). The results cited above support the claim that the SRT measures
sign language proficiency as well as it does spoken language proficiency.
The ASL-SRT has been adapted to several languages, including German Sign
Language (DGS, Kubus et al., 2015), British Sign Language (BSL, Cormier et al.,
2012), and Swiss German Sign Language (DSGS, Haug et al., 2020), among others.
Other sign language tests are also sentence repetition task-based, for example, those
assessing Italian Sign language (LIS, Rinaldi et al., 2018) and French Sign Language
(LSF, Bogliotti et al., 2020), but those follow a different methodological framework,
and development, administration, and coding procedures. This article describes
how the STS-SRT was developed and outlines its psychometric properties.

Method
STS-SRT development
Translated, corpus, and novel sentences
The STS-SRT began with 60 sentences from 3 different sources; 20 were translated
from the ASL-SRT (Hauser et al., 2008), 20 were from the Swedish Sign Language
Corpus (STSC, Mesch & Wallin, 2012), and 20 novel sentences were developed for
this project. For the first source, the original 20 ASL sentences were translated into
STS by a deaf native STS signer proficient in ASL along with a trained linguist pro-
ficient in both languages. There were two reasons for translating the ASL sentences.
Instead of making all sentences novel, we decided to try the sentences that have been
developed and proofed for ASL-SRT, in order to keep open the possibility of future
cross-linguistic comparisons. For the second source, the team extracted 20 authentic
sentences from the STSC (Mesch & Wallin, 2012). The STSC consists of naturally
occurring, authentic STS productions between deaf people. The motivation behind
using STSC as a resource was to enhance the authenticity of the sentences. Only
sentences from native STS users were selected. Efforts were made to select authentic
sentences that could work context-free. Some of the sentences relate to typical topics
within the deaf community; that is, basic cultural knowledge associated with being
deaf. For example, one sentence contains elements from the history of oral deaf edu-
cation, and another sentence describes the signing skills of teachers of the deaf. For
the third source, the team also created 20 novel items. We varied items by length
(short, 3–4 signs; intermediate, 5–6 signs; and long, 7–10 signs), lexical classification
(e.g., lexical, fingerspelled, and classifier signs), and morphological (e.g., numeral

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 160 Krister Schönström and Peter C. Hauser

Figure 1. Three examples of STS-SRT sentences: Translated, Corpus, and Novel.

incorporation, modified signs), and syntactic (e.g., determiners, main and subordi-
nate clauses) complexity.
A deaf native signer was filmed signing the sentences in a natural manner and
tempo against a dark studio background. Care was taken to reproduce the signs pre-
cisely as produced by the authentic signers in the original ASL or STSC sentences, that
is, using the same variants of signs, the same syntactic order, the same speed, etc. The
60 sentences were later presented to 3 deaf native signers for review. A criterion based
on 2/3 exclusion was applied; that is, if two of the three reviewers rejected a sentence
as inauthentic, inexplicit, non-fluent, or even ungrammatical, the sentence was
removed. This review process left 40 sentences, of which 16 were translated sentences,
11 sentences were corpus sentences, and 13 were novel sentences (Figure 1).

Test administration procedures

A QuickTime video file was created with the STS-SRT instructions, practice senten-
ces, and test sentences. Every sentence video clip was followed by a gray background

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 Applied Psycholinguistics 161

Figure 2. Format of STS-SRT sentence delivery.

for 7–9 s, depending on the sentence length; see Figure 2. There were 10–12 frames
at the beginning of each sentence before the signing start time to give participants
enough time to prepare themselves after pushing the space button to play the clip.
Five frames were also added at the signing end time to eliminate any negative effect
on memory and to give participants time to start imitating the sentences as fast as
possible. The STS-SRT was presented on an Apple MacBook Pro 15 with a 15-inch
screen and a built-in camera to record repetitions, in a quiet room without visual
distractions. The laptop was placed on a table with a deaf research assistant sitting
beside the participant.
The test begins with instructions in which the deaf signing research assistant
describes the test and the procedure to be followed, that is, that the participant
is going to see some sentences and will be told to repeat the sentences. Participants
are instructed to repeat the sentences as seen, and are explicitly asked to use the sign
produced by the signer rather than a synonym. The instructions conclude by announc-
ing that there will be three practice sentences before the actual test begins. During the
practice, the research assistant checks understanding and corrects any mistakes. During
testing, the research assistant can use the space bar to pause the sentences as necessary,
for example, to ensure that the participant answers within the allotted response time
(7–9 s), that is, before the start of the next item. After completion, the recording is saved
for later scoring.

Scoring procedures
The STS-SRT scoring procedures follow the same principles and basic instructions
as the ASL-SRT (Hauser et al., 2008), that is, each correct response is scored 1 point,
and each incorrect response is scored 0 points. A sentence that is not produced with
the same phonology, morphology, or syntax as the stimulus sentence is considered
an error and is marked as 0. Raters use a scoring protocol and mark signs in the
sentences that were repeated incorrectly or omitted. The STS-SRT scoring instruc-
tions (Figure 3) include examples of errors base on phonological (e.g., different
handshape used), morphological (e.g., omission of reduplication forms), and syn-
tactic (e.g., different word order) differences. Omissions, replacements, or changes
of lexical items were counted as errors. Metathesis and altered direction of signing
were considered acceptable as long as they did not affect meaning.
The scoring protocol focused on manual features only, that is the signs, and not
on nonmanual features, that is, use of eye gaze, eyebrows, etc., for grammatical and

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 162 Krister Schönström and Peter C. Hauser

Figure 3. Two example sentences from the Scoring Instruction Manual, Original with English Translation
in parenthesis.

prosodic as well as pragmatic purposes, with a few exceptions: the use of another
mouthing with a completely different meaning in otherwise ambiguous sign pairs,
for example, the mouthing /fa/ as in FABRIK (factory) where appropriate mouthing
for the target item FUNGERA (working) would have been /fu/ even though the
manual sign for FUNGERA and FABRIK is the same, but with different mouthings
depending on the meaning. Additionally, nonmanual markers such as headshaking
were required for the accurate production of a negative utterance.
The scoring instructions describe the point system, correct versus error responses
(e.g., omission, replacement, change in word order), and examples of acceptable/
unacceptable response variants for each item. It is important that the raters are flu-
ent STS signers and have basic knowledge of sign language linguistics in order to
accurately rate the responses. We created test administration instructions aimed at
test instructors, as well as scoring instructions and sheets for the raters to use. It is
recommended that new raters practice with experienced raters to ensure confidence
about the procedure.

STS-SRT pilot testing

The purpose of pilot testing was to review the sentences and to practice some testing
in a real-life situation to examine the test’s functionality. In the pilot testing, we also

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 Applied Psycholinguistics 163

observed some recurring phonological variants in signs to use in the scoring instruc-
tions, that is, a list of acceptable phonological variants on signs. A purposeful sample
of 10 participants was chosen according to different background variables: four par-
ticipants were deaf adults of deaf signing parents, five participants were deaf adults
of hearing parents, and one was a hearing skilled signer of hearing parents. The
parental hearing status of the adult participants is important because, in the absence
of proficiency tests, researchers have identified deaf individuals as native signers if
they were raised by deaf signing parents; they are classified as non-native signers if
they have hearing parents (see Humphries et al., 2014 for discussion on the linguis-
tic experience of deaf children of hearing parents). The pilot sample included both
native and non-native signers.
Data from the pilot study helped to adjust the acceptable phonological variants
according to STS linguistic rules and usage. For example, the movement of the sign
LÄSA (read) in sentence number 12 in Figure 3 was shown to vary widely between
signers, that is, alternating between a variant with movement with contact (which was
the target form as produced by the signer) and a variant without. The variant was
considered acceptable if more than 40% of signers in the pilot test group exhibited it.

STS-SRT final version

The number of sentences was reduced from 40 to 31 based on the pilot testing
results. In the final version of the STS-SRT, 11 were translated sentences, 8 were
corpus sentences, and 12 were novel sentences. Table 1 provides an overview of
the 31 sentences and their linguistic properties. It was important that the remaining
sentences included a wide variety of different linguistic properties. For lexicon and
morphology, different types of signs such as lexical signs (including fingerspelled
signs) and classifier signs were included. We also included numeral incorporations,
as well as signs modified to indicate plurality, aspect, and spatial reference. For syn-
tax, we aimed to have a variety of main and subordinate clauses, as well as different
kinds of phrasal structures (e.g., determiners in noun phrases, verb phrases with and
without auxiliary verbs). Subordinate clause types included relative, conditional,
object, consecutive, as well as causal. In addition, clauses were presented in various
word orders depending on information structure, and included such components as
topic clauses, adverbial fronting, etc. Some sentences were constructed with simple
syntax and simple lexical and morphological content, whereas some sentences have
a complex combination of both, or a combination of both simple and complex
constructions.
Sentences which no one repeated correctly in the pilot version were omitted, as
were some simple sentences that everyone repeated correctly. However, anticipating a
possible application to children, we decided to keep a few more of the simple senten-
ces in order not to make the test too difficult. In total, one simple sentence, two inter-
mediate sentences, and six complex sentences were omitted. The sentences in the final
version were ordered beginning with the items most of the pilot participants repeated
correctly and ending with the items that the fewest repeated correctly. Correct sen-
tence repetitions are awarded one point, allowing for a maximum STS-SRT score of
31. The test administration time is 15 min per participant, and rating time varies
between 15 and 20 min.

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 164 Krister Schönström and Peter C. Hauser

Table 1. Linguistic properties of the 31 STS-SRT sentences

Description of linguistic properties

Item # Signs Source Lexicon and morphology Syntax and discourse

1 3 Translated Use of referential space, negation,

2 5 Novel Modified sign, fingerspelled sign Determiner in NP
3 5 Novel Fingerspelled sign Topic clause,
4 6 Novel Auxiliary verb
5 4 Translated Relative clause, use of referential
space
6 4 Translated Classifier sign Topic clause, determiner in NP
7 4 Novel Modified sign Relative clause, use of referential
space
8 4 Novel Use of referential space
9 4 Corpus Modified sign, compound sign
10 4 Corpus Adverbial-fronted sentence
11 5 Translated Fingerspelled sign Auxiliary verb, determiner in NP,
12 5 Translated Plural incorporation Object clause,
13 6 Corpus Determiners in NP, auxiliary verb,
referential space
14 5 Novel Compound noun, Number Topic clause, determiners in NP,
incorporation
15 6 Translated Classifier sign Noun classifier, determiner in NP
16 5 Corpus Indicating sign, Causal clause, auxiliary verb,
palm-up gesture
17 9 Novel Fingerspelled sign, modified Conditional clause, determiner in
sign, NP
18 6 Corpus Indicating signs Referential space,
19 4 Novel Topic clause, negation, pronomi-
nal copy
20 5 Novel Conditional clause
21 7 Corpus Fingerspelled sign, indicating Topic clause, determiner in NP
sign
22 10 Translated Modified sign Relative clause, determiner in NP
23 8 Novel Compound sign Object clause, auxiliary verb
24 8 Novel Classifier sign, fingerspelled sign Relative clause, determiner in NP
25 5 Novel Indicating verb, number incor-
poration
26 8 Translated Number incorporation, modified Auxiliary verbs, serial verbs, deter-
sign miner in NP
(Continued)

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 Applied Psycholinguistics 165

Table 1. (Continued )

Description of linguistic properties

Item # Signs Source Lexicon and morphology Syntax and discourse
27 7 Translated Classifier signs Consecutive clause, determiners
in NP
28 9 Translated Classifier signs, fingerspelled Consecutive clause, determiner in
sign, modified sign NP
29 9 Corpus Compound signs, fingerspelled Adverbial fronting, determiner in
signs NP
30 8 Corpus Indicating sign Auxiliary verb

31 7 Translated Modified sign Consecutive clause, determiner in

NP

Table 2. Descriptive statistics of test participants

Group n Age range Mean age SD n Deaf parents

Adults 30 20–49 32.23 7.94 11

Children 14 10–16 12.79 2.36 6

STS-SRT psychometric testing

Sample
There were 44 participants in the psychometric testing sample, including 14 deaf
children (8 females and 6 males) and 30 deaf adults (17 females and 13 males);
see Tables 2 and 3 for descriptive statistics and overview of the participants.
Adult participants were asked to fill out a background questionnaire in which they
answered questions about their language, identity, education, hearing status,
parents’ hearing status and language background, and age they were first exposed
to STS (Age of Acquisition [AoA]). Background questionnaires of child participants
were filled by their parents. The study procedures were approved by the Swedish
Ethical Board.

Results
Reliability evidence
A deaf fluent signer, who is a trained linguist, rated all of the 44 participants’ STS-
SRT repetitions and a second rater, also a deaf fluent signer and trained linguist,
independently rated the repetitions of a subsample of 29 participants to determine
inter-rater reliability. Inter-rater reliability was computed between the raters using
the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) with a two-way mixed-effects model for
single rater protocols (Koo & Li, 2016). Intraclass Correlation Coefficient values
between 0.60 and 0.74 are good and values between 0.75 and 1.0 are excellent
(Cicchetti, 1994). The ICC for the STS-SRT raters was 0.900 (95% confidence

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 166 Krister Schönström and Peter C. Hauser

Table 3. Participants’ gender, parent hearing status, Age, Age of Acquisition, and STS-SRT score

ID Gender Family Age AoA SRT score

CHILDREN
1611 Female Deaf 10 0 6
1613 Female Hearing 11 2 2
1617 Male Hearing 11 2 1
1619 Female Deaf 11 0 9
1620 Male Deaf 10 0 11
1701 Female Deaf 10 0 10
1702 Female Deaf 11 0 14
1628 Male Hearing 15 2 2
1629 Female Hearing 15 1 2
1631 Female Deaf 15 0 11
1635 Female Hearing 15 1 5
1638 Male Hearing 15 1 5
1647 Male Hearing 14 7 1
1650 Male Hearing 16 9 3
ADULTS
s001 Female Deaf 49 0 26
s002 Female Hearing 26 1 24
s004 Male Hearing 41 2 17
s008 Female Deaf 20 0 18
s009 Male Hearing 39 7 12
s010 Male Hearing 38 6 8
s011 Female Deaf 34 0 24
s013 Female Hearing 36 2 14
s014 Male Deaf 39 0 18
s015 Male Deaf 23 0 21
s016 Female Hearing 44 3 18
s017 Male Hearing 20 1 22
s018 Female Deaf 34 0 21
s019 Female Hearing 39 4 6
s020 Male Hearing 30 1 23
s021 Female Hearing 25 2 14
s022 Female Hearing 24 1 21
(Continued)

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 Applied Psycholinguistics 167

Table 3. (Continued )

ID Gender Family Age AoA SRT score

s023 Female Deaf 28 0 19
s024 Female Deaf 43 0 20
s025 Male Hearing 31 1 14
s026 Female Hearing 23 2 16
s027 Female Hearing 23 0 23
s028 Female Hearing 22 2 21
s029 Male Hearing 31 1 11
s030 Female Deaf 38 0 17
s032 Female Deaf 33 0 23
s034 Male Deaf 33 0 17
s035 Male Hearing 43 2 16
s036 Male Hearing 31 2 12

s039 Male Hearing 27 1 14

Note: AoA = Age of Acquisition.

interval [CI] = .787, .953, p < .001), which is in the excellent range of inter-rater
reliability. Cronbach’s alpha was used to determine the STS-SRT’s internal reliabil-
ity. Analyses revealed that the test has an alpha of 0.915 (95% CI = .875, .948,
p < .001), suggesting that there is excellent internal consistency between the items.
As an additional analysis and comparison, internal consistency was measured for
the three sentence sources, Translated (n = 11), Corpus (n = 8), and Novel (n = 12),
yielding Cronbach’s alpha of 0.774, 0.714, and 0.828, and 95% CI = [.661, .862],
p < .001, [.565, .826], p < .001, and [.742, .894], p < .001, respectively.

Validity evidence
Validity support for the claim that the STS-SRT results can be interpreted as a deaf
test taker’s language competency in STS can be provided by demonstrating that
those with greater language mastery (i.e., adults or those with exposure to the lan-
guage from birth) perform better on the test than those who are expected to have
lesser language mastery (i.e., children or those who have experienced language dep-
rivation). There were some factors that were introduced to this test such as the sen-
tences originating from three different sources (ASL, STS, Corpus) and the
sentences varied in the Number of Signs (2–4, 5–6, and 7
). A linear mixed model,
with Modified Forward Selection, was used to capture the fixed main effects and
interaction between Source and Number of Signs, with response variable the percent
correct within each Source/Number of Signs combination. The independent vari-
able contains a mix of random effects and fixed effects. Participant ID was used
to account for the multiple measurements on each participant, and was a factor with
random effects. Source, Number of Signs, Child_Adult (Child, Adult) Family (Deaf

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 168 Krister Schönström and Peter C. Hauser

Table 4. Participants’ STS-SRT raw scores by children or adult and parental hearing status

Group n Mean SD

Adult 30 17.67 4.93

Children 14 5.86 4.37
Deaf parents 17 16.76 5.74

Hearing parents 27 12.11 7.67

Table 5. Participants’ STS-SRT raw scores by Age of Acquisition Group

AoA Group n Mean SD

Birth 18 17.11 5.56

1 year old 10 14.10 8.23
2 years old 10 11.50 7.18

3
years old 6 8.00 6.23

Note: AoA = Age of Acquisition.

family, Hearing family), and AoA Group (0, 1, 2, or 3
years) were the factors with
fixed effects, and Age, AoA, and Years of Signing were the covariates. See Tables 4
and 5 for raw scores and Table 6 for mean percent correct repetitions.
The Mixed-Effects ANOVA Analysis in Minitab was able to run the full model by
using a restricted maximum likelihood method of variance estimation. However,
this model suffered from multicollinearity. Therefore, the Akaike Information
Criterion (AIC, corrected for small sample size) was used to build the appropriate
model in order to evaluate the effects of a base set of variables related to STS-SRT
performance, while accounting for subject variance and avoiding multicollinearity.
Modified Forward Selection is a model-building technique in which a base set of
variables (Source, Number of Signs, Source × Number of Signs) appear in each
model, and additional variables are considered one a time, starting with Child_
Adult, Family, Age, AoA, AoA_Group, and Years_Signing in Model 1. Child_
Adult had the lowest AICc (92.24) and, hence, was added to the base set of variables
for Round 2. In Round 2, among all potential models at most one additional variable
over the base set of variables, the model with AoA_Group had the lowest IACc
(80.64) and was added to the base set of variables for Round 3. In Round 3, the
model with no additional variables had the lowest AICs (80.64), so Model 3 was
used in the following analyses to determine the main effects and coefficients of
the variables.
With a −2 log likelihood of 76.612, it was found that ID accounted for 9.93% of
the estimated subjects’ variance (z = 2.169, p = .015), leaving a substantial amount
of between-subject variability, 90.07% (z = 13.115, p < .001). Main effects were
found for all fixed effects: Source F(2, 344) = 3.07, p = .048, ηp2 = 0.018; Number
of Signs F(2, 344) = 142.80, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.454; Source × Number of Signs
F(4, 344) = 4.61, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.051; Child_Adult F(1, 39) = 126.33, p < .001,

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 Applied Psycholinguistics 169

Table 6. Percent correct repetitions based on sentence length by family and age group

Mean
Sentence length Family Age group % Correct SD n

3–4 signs Deaf parents Adult 89 12 11

Child 54 13 6
Total 77 21 17
Hearing parents Adult 81 16 19
Child 23 12 8
Total 64 30 27
Total Adult 84 15 30
Child 37 20 14
Total 69 28 44
5–6 signs Deaf parents Adult 78 12 11
Child 40 11 6
Total 64 22 17
Hearing parents Adult 60 24 19
Child 58 7 8
Total 44 32 27
Total Adult 67 22 30
Child 20 19 14
Total 52 30 44
7
signs Deaf parents Adult 36 18 11
Child 8 15 6
Total 26 22 17
Hearing parents Adult 23 16 19
Child 0 0 8
Total 16 17 27
Total Adult 28 18 30
Child 3 10 14

Total 20 19 44

ηp2 = 0.764; and, AoA_Group F(3, 39) = 12.11, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.482. Model 3
accounted for 65.47% of the residual variance (S = 0.236, AIC = 80.64,
BIC = 88.51). See Table 7 for a summary of the results. Partial eta-squared is the
variance explained by a given variable of the variance remaining after excluding var-
iance explained by other predictors.
Adults scored 20.2% higher than children, and earlier AoA was associated with
higher scores. With the base level for AoA Group being 3
years, participants who

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 170 Krister Schönström and Peter C. Hauser

Table 7. Coefficients for percent correct STS-SRT repetitions

95% onfidence
Interval
t-test Effect Reference
Variable Estimate SE Lower Upper (df) p size (d) levels

Source
ASL 0.030 0.017 −0.003 0.063 1.810 0.071 0.222 vs Novel
(344)
Corpus −0.040 0.017 −0.073 −0.007 −2.371 0.018 0.291 vs Novel
(344)
Number of Signs
3–4 0.220 0.017 0.187 0.253 13.119 0.000 1.614 vs 7andUp
(344)
5–6 0.045 0.017 0.018 0.078 2.667 0.008 0.328 vs 7andUp
(344)
Source × Number
of Signs
ASL 3–4 0.013 0.024 −0.034 0.059 0.528 0.598 0.112 vs STS
(344) 7andUp
ASL 5–6 0.052 0.024 0.005 0.098 2.176 0.030 0.464 vs STS
(344) 7andUp
Corpus 3–4 0.052 0.024 0.006 0.099 2.208 0.028 0.470 vs STS
(344) 7andUp
Corpus 5–6 −0.027 0.024 −0.076 0.017 −1.248 0.213 0.266 vs STS
(344) 7andUp
Child or Adult 0.202 0.018 0.166 0.239 11.240 0.000 1.212 Adult versus
(39) Child
AoA Group
Birth 0.144 0.026 0.091 0.196 5.556 0.000 0.873 vs 3
years
(39)
1 year old 0.034 0.031 −0.029 0.096 1.095 0.280 0.188 vs 3
years
(39)

2 years old −0.037 0.031 −0.099 0.025 −1.195 0.239 0.205 vs 3
years
(39)

were exposed to STS from birth performed 14.4% better than those who acquired STS
when they were 3 years old or older. Those who acquired STS around the age of 1 or 2
years old did not have significantly more correct repetitions than those who acquired
the language later. With the base level for Source being STS, participants performed
3.0% better on the sentences that were translated from the ASL-SRT than on the
STS sentences that the team had developed. However, correct reproduction was
4.0% less on the sentences developed from the STS corpus than on items developed
by the team. The results also indicated that participants performed 22.0% better on
items of 3–4 signs than on items of 7
signs, but only 4.5% better on items of 5–6 signs.

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 Applied Psycholinguistics 171

Discussion
Similar to the ASL-SRT (Hauser et al., 2008), the STS-SRT finds that adults produce
more correct repetitions than children, and those with early AoA produce more
correct repetitions than those with delayed STS acquisition. The authors utilize
the argument-based validation framework (Chapelle, 2020; Knoch & Chapelle,
2018) to describe the validity of STS-SRT interpretation. This framework requires
test developers to be explicit about the claims and inferences they make about the
test, and about its interpretation and use. Here, we make evaluation inferences
(Kane, 2006) that the STS-SRT is a good measure of STS proficiency both because
of how it was developed and because of its results. The sentences were carefully
crafted by qualified individuals with extensive STS linguistic knowledge, and dem-
onstrated excellent internal consistency. The scoring protocol supported this with
excellent inter-rater reliability. The inference that the test is good was further sup-
ported by results demonstrating that the translated, corpus, and novel sentences did
not impact sentence repetition differently. This is an explanation inference, about
why the test scores represent an individual’s language proficiency. It supports past
research suggesting that the SRT measures language, not memory per se. This infer-
ence was supported by results demonstrating that native signers perform better than
non-native signers and that adults perform better than children. The sign span
results also provide evidence to support explanation inferences about the results
because this study demonstrated that longer sentences cannot be reproduced with
rote memory alone, providing support that implicit linguistic knowledge is needed
to correctly repeat sentences.
Age of Acquisition accounted for 14.4% of the variance of the STS-SRT partic-
ipants’ correct repetitions. It is unclear what explains the remaining variance,
although in the USA, Stone et al. (2015) found that AoA explained only 15.2%
of the variance in ASL-SRT correct repetitions. Our hypothesis is that there are
fewer individuals in Sweden who experience language acquisition delays compared
to in other countries because Sweden has a relatively long history with an infrastruc-
ture of sign language intervention for hearing parents. This intervention includes
teaching STS to hearing parents of deaf children during the children’s first years.
Many deaf children of hearing parents have therefore been exposed to STS from
early on and have access to STS at home. As can be seen in the AoA distribution
of the participants of this study, there are relatively few participants who have had
first exposure to STS after the age of 3. In fact, most deaf children will have been
exposed to STS through their entire childhood up to adult years. Nevertheless, it is
hard to track the degree of exposure, and one would expect more variability in STS
proficiency within that group compared to among deaf children of deaf parents,
who are expected to have been exposed to STS from birth.
One limitation of the study is the small sample size. There is no official record of
the size of the deaf (since childhood) population in Sweden, but one recurring esti-
mate is 8,000–10,000 people in total (Parkvall, 2015). The deaf population is thus
much smaller than in some other countries such as the USA. This makes it difficult
to have a large sample size of subgroups within the deaf community such as native
signers, who typically represent only 5–10% of the deaf community (Mitchell &
Karchmer, 2004). Regardless, no test should be considered valid based on a single

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 172 Krister Schönström and Peter C. Hauser

psychometric property or publication. Under the argument-based validity frame-

work, we can justify the claim that STS-SRT scores can reveal how well a person
is able to comprehend and reproduce STS sentences compared to others.
However, more studies are needed to add to the overall construct validity of the
STS-SRT as a test of STS proficiency. Future studies of the STS-SRT are needed
to determine, for example, test–retest reliability and how claims and inferences
about the test’s interpretation and use are validated.
Another possible limitation pertains to the test scoring system itself. There is rig-
orous research on the importance of nonmanual components for the structure of
sign languages, as well as for the emergence of the same in stages of sign language
development. However, ASL-SRT inter-rater reliability was poor when the test
included the scoring of nonmanual components. The gradual variation of nonman-
ual components among the signers was highly variable, which made it hard for the
raters to detect and rate them. STS-SRT followed the same scoring protocol as ASL-
SRT, but added a limited set of nonmanual components in the scoring protocol,
namely mouthing and headshaking for grammatical functions, in order to increase
the efficiency of rating. It is advisable, however, that future tests include the scoring
of the nonmanual components in order to capture sign language proficiency more
holistically.
Most importantly, the results of this study support the Critical Period Hypothesis
for language acquisition (see Newport et al., 2001 for discussion). The compromised
performance by deaf individuals with delayed language exposure, and/or those
raised in inaccessible, language-impoverished environments, is a concern because
language deprivation is prevalent in the deaf community (Hall, 2017; Mayberry,
2010; Mayberry, Lock & Kazmi, 2002). Research has demonstrated that the early
acquisition of sign language is important for cognitive (e.g., Courtin, 2000; Hall
et al., 2018; Hauser, Lukomski & Hillman, 2008) and literacy development (e.g.,
Clark et al., 2016; Stone et al., 2015). The results of this study provide evidence
not only of the validity of the STS-SRT, but also that delayed sign language acqui-
sition is happening in Sweden as it is elsewhere.

Conclusion
This study on the one hand provides straightforward implications for sign language
testing and on the other hand, widens our understanding of language testing more
generally. This study proposes an STS test that has excellent reliability and validity,
and which can be used by researchers and practitioners to document child and adult
STS proficiency. The STS-SRT can be used as a continuous variable in theoretical,
clinical, and applied psycholinguistics and other language and behavioral sciences,
as well as by educators and other specialists tracking language development.
Acknowledgments. First of all, we also would like to express our gratitude to the following people for their
assistance in the STS-SRT development process: Magnus Ryttervik, Joel Bäckström, Mats Jonsson, Pia
Simper-Allen, and Thomas Björkstrand. We would also like to thank Okan Kubus and Christian
Rathmann for sharing their valuable experience of the development of DGS-SRT. Thanks also to Carol
Marchetti and Robert Parody for statistics assistance and Susan Rizzo and Angela Terrill for proofreading
the paper. We also express our gratitude to the three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on

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 Applied Psycholinguistics 173

earlier drafts of this paper. Finally, we would like to thank our incredible test takers for participating in the
study.

Conflict of Interest. No conflicts were reported.

Ethical Consideration. This STS test development study was approved by the Swedish Ethical Review
Board (EPN 2013/1220-31/5). Child data were obtained from another study also approved by the
Swedish Ethical Review Board (EPN 2016/469-31/5).

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Cite this article: Schönström, K. and Hauser, PC. (2022). The sentence repetition task as a measure of sign
language proficiency. Applied Psycholinguistics 43, 157–175. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716421000436

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716421000436 Published online by Cambridge University Press