Take the receptive quizzes at http://www.dailycues.com/activities.html
(bottom left)

I also suggest downloading the spoken and cued speech tours of the National Gallery. Watch the cueing tour first. Then listen to the spoken tour, then go back and watch the cued tour one more time. http://www.keenguides.org/tours.aspx

I’m a native cuer — been cueing since I was almost four years old. What I can tell you is that if I’m with someone else who is cueing, it’s definitely the easiest form of communication for me. I’m also a pretty proficient lipreader too, though there have been times when I just “don’t get it.” And that can happen for any number of reasons — being tired, the person has a thick accent that I’m not familiar with (I can usually handle the hispanic/latino or indian accents, but others are less prevalent), or my brain is just simply spazzing out for whatever reason.

However, it is my strong belief that I would not be as proficient a lip reader without having grown up cueing, and for one simple reason: cues are located around the mouth area, and require the normal mouth movements and shapes to occur naturally. So, in a way, being exposed to cueing also exposed me to what the mouth shapes and movements should be, naturally. So while the two together is the “perfect combination” for me, I can lip read well, as I have the concrete knowledge of which mouth shapes and movements are associated with the consonants and vowels.

I recently was part of a research study that tested various people’s ability to gain information through cues. I had to lipread two people (one male, one female) on video and type out what they were saying. That was the lipreading baseline. Most hearing people get an average of about 30-40% correct, and I got around 60-70% correct. With cues, I had 95-100% accuracy. I think that says a lot.

From what you’ve written it sounds like you’re fairly proficient already at lip reading. You say that you “bounce between the Deaf world and Hearing world”, so I assume this means you also sign. This makes it sound like in day to day life with friends and family you’re pretty comfortable and feel you have good access to the communication going on around you. If this is the case then there are probably only a couple of advantages Cued Speech might bring to you at this point: The first might be a little better ability to lip read. Cue Reading frequently can help you to become an even better lip reader. Better lip reading skill means you’ll understand better even when the speaker is not cueing. The other advantage might come if there are situations where you use a signing translator or a CART system to get information such as in a class room or other speaking event. If like Tasha, you’re still in school and frustrated by the methods you’ve used to get the information presented orally by your teachers, you might find that using a Cued Language Transliterator gives you the information in a more useful manner.

So, how does Cueing help someone communicate, when the people they are with do not cue? I can only look to my son for that answer, but being with hearing friends, who do not cue, does not intimidate him. His best friend is hearing and only cues a little. My son has become an amazing lip reader. The two of them communicate with no difficulty. I feel that learning language with the help of Cued Speech has given him a strong base in language skill and in lip reading skill. It’s also made him a part of the group of kids at school, so that he has the confidence to be in a group of hearing friends and not feel out of place.

As I said, I hope some of the adult deaf cuers will also respond with their experiences.