CUED SPEECH

Cued Speech

Cued Speech

Cued Speech is a sound-based hand supplement to speechreading. Eight handshapes representing groups of consonants are placed in four positions around the face that indicated groups of vowel sounds. Combined with the natural lip movements of speech, the cues make spoken language visible. Cued Speech was developed by R. Orin Cornett, Ph.D. at Gallaudet University in 1965-66 (Cornett, 1967). His research was one of the responses to a report by a federal government study critical of deaf education, in particular, unsatisfactory literacy levels among high school graduates who were deaf. The purpose of this communication tool was to improve the early English language development of children who are deaf and provide them with a foundation for English reading and writing. Cued Speech has been adapted to approximately 60 other spoken languages and dialects. It is used in schools and programs for children who are deaf, but its primary use has been within hearing families of young children who are deaf and in regular education classrooms when those children enter school.

Families of and professionals working with children with hearing losses, symptoms of autism, Down Syndrome, deaf-blindness, cerebral palsy, and auditory processing deficits have used Cued Speech (Beck, 1985; Cornett, 1985). Families of individuals with physical disabilities that make them unable to speak use Cued Speech through a vision board that tracks eye gaze toward cue groups on a grid. This aid is called Nu Vue-Cue (Clark, 1984). Cued Speech has been used by regular education teachers for phonics instruction, by speech therapists for articulation therapy, and by deafened adults to re-establish communication with their friends and families. Young adults who grew up using Cued Speech use it to communicate with other cuers and their hearing friends who learn it.

For families of children with disabilities, Cued Speech removes communication barriers. ...