The EIPA Performance Test records you doing two jobs: interpreting spoken classroom English into sign, and voicing a student's signed message into spoken English. Raters score named sub-skills from 0 to 5 across four areas covering voice-to-sign product, sign-to-voice product, vocabulary, and overall message processing. Your rating applies to the grade level and sign system you tested in, and there is no degree or written-test prerequisite. Prepare by rehearsing recorded renditions in both directions against the glossary criteria, and handle the booking details early.
What the assessment measures
The EIPA Performance Test records two live skills: expressive interpretation of classroom content and discourse from spoken English into sign, and receptive interpretation of student sign language into spoken English.
Boys Town's Classroom Interpreting program describes the test as evaluating how well you expressively render classroom content and discourse and how well you receptively understand student signing. It is not tied to a single sign language or system; it is used for interpreters working with students who use predominantly American Sign Language (ASL) or Pidgin Sign English (PSE).
The performance test is a separate assessment from the EIPA Written Test. The issuer states there is no required sequence between them, and you are not required to take both. Both expressive and receptive portions are recorded on camera, so your preparation has to match a production format rather than a knowledge quiz.
Format, fees, and booking
Testing runs through EIPA-approved local test administrators in quarterly sessions. The fee is $365, the appointment typically takes two to two and a half hours, and there are no prerequisites.
The performance test fee is $365, due at registration. An approved local test administrator may charge an additional $85 fee, so contact your administrator before registering if you want to confirm the total. There are no prerequisites and no degree requirement, which the issuer states directly.
Four quarterly testing sessions run each year, and registration opens roughly two weeks before each session begins: December 15 for the January-to-March quarter, March 15 for April-to-June, June 15 for July-to-September, and September 15 for October-to-December. Registration closes five full days before the test date and time, which is also the deadline to withdraw. You register through the EIPA test registration catalog, which lists tests by type and state; the test is standardized, so you may take it at any site, not just your home state.
Cancellation policy matters if your plans change: payment is refundable minus a $40 processing fee only if you cancel at least five full days (120 hours) before the test, done through your Boys Town Learning Center account. Telling your test administrator is appreciated but is not a cancellation. No refunds are issued for no-shows or cancellations after registration closes.
If you need test accommodations, submit written documentation to the EIPA Diagnostic Center on official letterhead before you register, including the specific diagnosis, why accommodations are needed, the tests or protocols used to confirm it, and the accommodations prescribed, signed by a qualified professional. Only the EIPA Diagnostic Center can approve accommodations; test administrators cannot.
Expect a confirmation email immediately after registering, followed by site details from your administrator before test day. On the day, a private, well-lit recording room is used, and your expressive and receptive work is captured on video.
How raters score your work
Each sub-skill receives a score from 5 (Advanced) down to 0 (No Skill). Items that do not apply to your selected sign system are marked N/A and left out of the averaged score.
The official evaluation form organizes scoring into four rating areas, and Boys Town publishes a glossary explaining every sub-skill on that form. The glossary also carries an important boundary: your evaluation applies to the grade level and language or sign system you selected, and the issuer recommends re-evaluation if you change grade level, target sign system, or language. A rating in one setting does not certify you across all settings.
Rating descriptors are specific to each skill. For example, the glossary describes one item's top ratings as conveying stress accurately and rarely making an error, with percentage figures given for that item only. Do not treat any single descriptor as a universal scoring formula that applies across the whole test.
| Rating area | What it covers |
|---|---|
| I. Interpreter Product – Voice to Sign | Your signed rendition of spoken English: prosody, register, sentence types, non-manual markers, use of space and classifiers, ASL or PSE grammar |
| II. Interpreter Product – Sign to Voice | Your comprehension of a signer and the quality of the spoken English you produce |
| III. Vocabulary | Amount of sign vocabulary, production accuracy, fluency, fingerspelling, and numbers |
| IV. Overall Factors – Message Processing | Whole-message sense, use of lag time, discourse mapping, and indicating who is speaking |
Voice to sign: what raters look for
The signed-product area measures prosody, affect, register, clear sentence boundaries and sentence types, non-manual adverbial markers, spatial grammar, classifiers, and whether your output follows the grammar of ASL or PSE as required.
Prosody comes first. The glossary defines stress as changes in rhythm and pitch in speech, or rhythm and placement of signs in signing, serving attitudinal, accentual, grammatical, and discourse functions. In sign, stress is carried by facial expression, sign movement, rhythm, and body movement; without it, signing reads as lower, slower, and monotone. Affect is separate: head tilts, eyes, and body inclination show how the speaker feels about the message.
Register means adjusting language to the social situation and the listener's characteristics. The glossary names consultative (everyday, turn-taking conversation), casual (in-group talk with slang and looser precision), and deliberate (planned lectures and working situations with more complex syntax) as three primary registers, with intimate and frozen as two others. Your rendition should match the register of the classroom speaker, not flatten everything into one style.
Sentence structure is scored explicitly. Raters check that you mark sentence and clause boundaries with pauses and neutral hand positions instead of run-on signing, and that sentence types are visible: yes/no questions with raised brows and a forward head tilt, wh-questions with furrowed brows, and conditionals with a brow raise on the if-clause and the appropriate marker on the result clause. Non-manual adverbial and adjectival markers, such as mouth patterns like 'cs' for close by or 'cha' for huge, are a separate scored item.
Use of signing space is also assessed. Raters assess verb directionality and the pronominal system, comparison and contrast shown by placing referents in different fields with a body shift, and ASL classifier constructions, where specific handshapes represent stationary objects, vehicles, people, and other referents. If ASL is the target, expect extensive verb agreement, inflection, classifiers, non-manual markers, and spatial use; for PSE, the glossary still expects substantial non-manual marking and spatial grammar alongside English-influenced order. For signed English systems such as SEE2, the form scores consistent English morphological markers, with over 70 affixes in that system, and clear mouthing of the speaker's English when appropriate.
Practice task
A teacher says: "If it rains during recess, will we move gym indoors?" You are planning a rendition for a student whose target system is PSE. Using the EIPA rating criteria for sentence types, state the sentence type of each part of the utterance and list the non-manual markers each part requires.
Show answer
The utterance is a conditional whose result clause is a yes/no question. For the if-part ("If it rains during recess"), the criteria call for a brow raise, and the last sign of the conditional is held. For the then-part ("will we move gym indoors"), treated as a yes/no question, the criteria call for raised eyebrows, a head generally tilted forward, and the last sign of the question held.
The glossary defines conditionals as requiring an eyebrow raise on the if-portion with the final sign of the conditional held, and it gives a worked example where a conditional ending in a yes/no question adds raised brows, forward head tilt, and a held final sign to the then-portion. Marking only the question brows and skipping the conditional marker, or producing the whole utterance with flat affect, would lose the grammatical information raters score under the sentence-type item. This is a planning exercise: the scored skill is executing these markers in time with your signs on camera, which written rehearsal can organize but not itself assess.
Sign to voice: voicing student signing
The voiced-product area scores how much of the signer's signs, fingerspelling, register, and non-manual behavior you comprehend, and how cleanly and naturally you deliver the spoken English message.
Comprehension items are deliberately narrow. One item measures how much vocabulary you understand, another how much fingerspelling, and another how well you integrate a signer's non-manual behaviors and ASL morphology into your spoken English. The glossary notes these correlate strongly with register: if you miss the signs, the spelling, or the facial markers, you cannot produce spoken English that reflects the correct register.
Delivery has its own scored items. Speech production covers rate, rhythm, fluency, and volume, judged partly on how well they match the signer. Raters also check that your speech marks sentence and clause boundaries rather than running on, that sentence types come through, and that you emphasize important words and convey affect. Two further delivery criteria concern correct English word selection that matches the meaning of the source, and a clean message with no extraneous words or sounds, meaning no fillers, sighs, or audible self-corrections like announcing that you missed something.
Vocabulary, fingerspelling, and numbers
A dedicated vocabulary area scores how much sign vocabulary you have at the tested grade level, the accuracy and fluency of your production, consistency with the selected system, and your fingerspelling and number production.
Production accuracy is broken into four phonological parameters: handshape, palm orientation, movement, and location. The glossary explains that a sign error is easier to notice than to describe, so raters focus on where in these four parameters the error occurred. Fluency is scored separately and includes rhythm and rate alongside correct production.
Two judgment items are worth special attention. Vocabulary must be consistent with the targeted communication method, because wrong choices for the selected system can make the message semantically inaccurate. And key vocabulary must actually reach the student: when you cannot render the whole spoken message, analyze it so the student still gets the critical information, which at times means fingerspelling a term a student must recognize while reading or taking a test.
Fingerspelling itself is scored on clarity, fluency, and rate of production, plus spelling accuracy and appropriate use. The glossary flags two failure patterns: fingerspelling an exact English term when it is essential but missing, and using fingerspelling mainly to compensate for insufficient sign vocabulary rather than as a deliberate choice. Numbers production is its own scored item.
Message processing and classroom flow
The final rating area scores how you handle the whole message: building a sense of where the speaker is going, using lag time to analyze rather than word-match, mapping discourse spatially, and tracking who is speaking.
Both directions include a whole-message item. Voice to sign, it focuses on listening for where the speaker is going, processing intonation and the communicator's goal, and planning a visual-spatial structure. Sign to voice, it focuses on comprehending a student's signed discourse and delivering spoken English that reflects the student's intent in an age-appropriate way.
Lag time, which the glossary calls process decalage, is scored in both directions. The published criteria describe using process time to analyze the message, impose an order, work out problematic constructions, prioritize information, and keep up with the speaker through paraphrasing, holding information for later, simplifying, or deleting. The glossary does not prescribe any fixed number of seconds; what is scored is whether you use the time to analyze rather than trail the speaker word by word.
Two classroom-specific items close the form. Discourse mapping scores whether you represent contextual boundaries with a visual-spatial map showing components, sequence, and relationships of narrative chunks. And indicating who is speaking scores how you show conversational flow, which matters because classroom discourse can be quite rapid; the criteria ask whether you index or describe speakers and whether name signs are used, so the deaf student can follow the exchange and integrate into the class.
What each rating level means
Boys Town publishes skill profiles for ratings 1 through 5. Levels 1 and 2 are described as not recommended for classroom interpreting, level 3 as needing continued supervision, and levels 4 and 5 as conveying much or most classroom content.
The official profile document describes level 1 (Beginner) as very limited vocabulary with production that may be incomprehensible, and level 2 (Advanced Beginner) as basic vocabulary whose limits interfere with communication; both are stated as not recommended for classroom interpreting. Level 3 (Intermediate) can communicate very basic classroom content but may misinterpret complex information, and the profile says someone at this level needs continued supervision and continuing education in interpreting.
Level 4 (Advanced Intermediate) uses vocabulary broadly, handles most grammar clearly, and can convey much of the classroom content, though complex topics or rapid turn-taking may still pose problems. Level 5 (Advanced) shows broad, fluent vocabulary, minimal production errors, correct prosody, and very good comprehension, capable of clearly and accurately conveying the majority of classroom interactions.
EIPA provides an assessment rating. Check the requirements set by the relevant state education agency and employer for the role you want; a rating in one grade level or sign system does not establish competence in every setting. The EIPA Diagnostic Center can explain assessment options and reports.
Sources: Boys Town EIPA skill profiles at rating levels — Profile of Skills at Each Rating Level of the EIPA PDF; Boys Town glossary of EIPA performance rating terminology — Glossary of EIPA Terminology PDF, © 2021 Boys Town National Research Hospital
Preparing in the format you will be tested in
The test is a recorded production task in both directions, so the most useful preparation is recorded renditions reviewed against the glossary criteria, ideally with feedback from a qualified mentor. This is advice, not an official requirement.
Because both portions are recorded, written review alone cannot develop the scored skills; it can only organize them. A study routine worth adapting: pick classroom-style source material you are permitted to use, record an expressive rendition and a voiced rendition, then review your recordings against the glossary items in each rating area. Repeating the same source clip after an interval shows whether your errors are about completeness, register, non-manuals, or processing rather than just vocabulary.
Practise receptive work with appropriate, rights-cleared signed material. Preserve the actual signer's age-appropriate intent and register instead of imposing a generic child-like voice. Review whether your own fillers or self-corrections obscure the message.
Before registering, review the EIPA policies yourself, as the issuer places that responsibility on prospective registrants. Use the registration catalog to find a quarterly session and site, confirm any local proctor fee with your administrator, submit accommodation documentation early if needed, and read the confirmation email carefully when it arrives.
- Review EIPA policies before registering, including the five-day cancellation and withdrawal deadline
- Confirm the total cost, including any local proctor fee, before you pay the $365 test fee
- Submit accommodation requests to the EIPA Diagnostic Center before registering
- Practice recorded renditions in both directions and review them against the glossary criteria
- Register for a quarterly session through the official EIPA test registration catalog
Sources: Performance | Classroom Interpreting | Boys Town EIPA — classroominterpreting.org performance test page, retrieved 2026-09-15; Boys Town glossary of EIPA performance rating terminology — Glossary of EIPA Terminology PDF, © 2021 Boys Town National Research Hospital
Sources
Key facts verified against Boys Town EIPA sources retrieved September 2026: