Many of us are able to say, “…because of cued speech, ________________ is possible.”

For some of you, it can be “pursuing an education,” “sharing laughs with my siblings,” or “being able to tell my child, ‘I love you.’” For me: …because of cued speech, starting my own company is possible. Growing up with cued speech, it broadened my understanding of the deaf and hard of hearing community, and to understand the common misconception that this population is homogeneous. With this perspective, I realized that many cultural organizations and public spaces often think that American Sign Language (ASL) is a one-size-fits-all approach to access, and the only available accommodation.

I am not fluent in ASL, so I was left out of cultural experiences in which tours of art collections were offered as audio guides. Now, I could listen to the audio guides, but it wouldn’t be a relaxing experience for me, as it is for others. I would need to focus to listen. It was either that, read a bulky, 50-page transcript, or request an interpreter (presumably from a list of ASL interpreters) two-to-three weeks in advance. That’s not fun, right?

Out of this came my entrepreneurial spirit. I started a company called Keen Guides with three bright individuals who are helping to make this dream come to reality. We provide video interpretation/transliterations of audio guides that you can watch on a personal media player, such as your iPod. It’s going really well so far and we’ve received a lot of interest from cultural venues around Washington, DC. We are launching a pilot at the National Gallery of Art in early August. The tour will be available in cued speech, spoken, spoken with captions, and ASL. I hope you’ll come check it out! It will be great to hear from you – and your perspective. Our product is neat because it applies to everyone, and there aren’t any additional steps to take to get the access – you can watch (or listen to) a spoken tour while your friend watches the ASL video, captioned, or cued speech video. The beauty is that you’ll get to talk about the same tour at the same time, with the same content. Neat, isn’t it?

How do YOU fill in this blank: “because of cued speech, _____________ is possible.” ? I’d love to hear your comments!

-Catharine