Cued Speech

The original and continuing primary goal of cued speech is to improve English literacy of deaf children.

Concept: In this approach, the speaker positions their hands in various combinations of shapes and locations to unambiguously represent all sounds of spoken English. With this approach, even a deaf child who cannot fully hear all sounds of English can still fully understand all sounds of English. Signs are not used.

Pros:

• Only gestural method of communication that was logically and scientifically developed to provide optimal method of conveying speech sounds with a minimum amount of effort
• Prepares deaf children better for learning how to read than does TC or Bi-Bi since phonemes are the basis of cued speech as well as being the basis of the phonetic approach to reading
• With speechreading alone some sounds are ambiguous to the speechreader; cued speech offers complete unambiguous representation of all sounds
• Proponents claim that even children with cochlear implants may miss some sounds, but that these children get full representation of sounds with cued speech
• Once you know cued speech, you can cue any sound or word, unlike ASL or SEE where if you don't know the sign for a word, the opportunity is gone
• Since cued speech can be used for languages other than English, it can be used to help your child learn a foreign language
• Offers opportunity for deaf child to communicate in a language - English - that parents are already familiar with
• May be option for profoundly deaf children who do not have enough residual hearing to benefit from hearing aids, who are not candidates for a cochlear implant based on parental preference or physical reasons

• May not be needed if deaf child has auditory ability to comprehend all speech sounds through hearing aids or cochlear implant
• While holding great promise, has never reached popularity of ASL or SEE
• Very few people know how to cue, so for cueing your child will be limited to communicating with parents and other relatives who cue, friends who cue, and teachers or other professionals who cue
• You'll likely be faced with having to teach cued speech yourself to each new teacher your child has, unless a cued speech transliterator is available.

Current Status in Missouri:

• No cued speech programs in Missouri
• Cued speech instructors can be brought to your school or other location to provide in-service training to speech therapists, parents, and teachers of the deaf
• Summer "cue camps" are a popular means of learning cue speech or enhancing cueing skills

References:

The Cued Speech Resource Book for Parents of Deaf Children, by R. Orin Cornett, and Mry Daisey, c. 1992, by National Cued Speech Organization.

Gaining Cued Speech Proficiency by Walter Beaupre

National Organizations:

National Cued Speech Association

Materials:

booklet - Open Doors

Web sites:

• http://www.isl.net/~cuedspmn/Welcome.html
• http://www.CuedSpeech.com/index.html
• http://cuedspeech.com/majors/CSpeech.htm
• http://www.ingenweb.com/cuedspeech/

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