Cued Speech is a mode of communication based on the phonemes and properties of traditionally spoken languages. Cueing allows users who are deaf or hard of hearing or who have language/communication disorders to access the basic, fundamental properties of spoken languages through the use of vision. Despite the name, it has very little to do with articulation or speech per se. Cued Speech is a system consisting of one hand synchronized with the natural mouth movements of spoken language. Cued Speech is a visual system which allows a deaf person to differentiate the phonemes of a language which may otherwise be ambiguous with lip reading alone. In English, the 42 phonemes (/s/, /b/, /ch/, /e/, /r/, /n/, etc.) that combine to form over 600,000 words are represented with 8 hand shapes (consonants) and 5 placements around the face (vowels). Click to see the National Cued Speech Association’s Cue Charts. Speaking each of these sounds requires a distinctive shape of the lips and mouth. A deaf child receiving the cues consistently learns to distinguish phonemes visually – in the same way that a hearing child does it auditorily – and is able to steadily and naturally acquire language.
Since Cued Speech is based on phonemes, which make up all spoken languages, it is not language-specific and can be adapted for use in virtually any spoken language. To date, Cued Speech has been adapted for use with close to 60 different languages. Cued Speech provides clear and unambiguous access to the complete language necessary for comprehension, fluency and literacy. Cued Speech was designed to give deaf/heard of hearing children the tools to naturally acquire phonemic decoding skills at the same rate as their hearing peers. Research has shown that profoundly deaf children who consistently receive cued language read on the same level as their hearing peers. This is a truly amazing break-through. Cued Speech allows families to continue to use the language of the home. Research has shown that access to the language of the home is critical to the child’s age-appropriate development of complete language. The child can be a part of daily language interaction with the immediate and extended family, enabling expanded opportunities for language growth as well as increased security and sense of belonging. Parents and grandparents already have the language to convey their thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. Cued Speech gives them a simple tool to make these ideas accessible for the deaf or hard of hearing child. The child can have access to the same language used by siblings, neighborhood children and school friends.
The Contributors:
Barb Ballard: Barb is the parent of a child with a moderate to severe hearing loss. Her son was diagnosed as post-lingually deaf and it is believed that his hearing loss was the result of intravenous antibiotics. She learned to cue after he was diagnosed as hearing impaired. Together with her husband Don, they live in rural Clifton, Virginia. Their son attends Fairfax County Public Schools where Cued Speech is supported by the Deaf/HOH program.
Beth Blair: Beth is a Lead Cued Language Transliterator for Fairfax County Public Schools. A 1985 graduate of California University of PA, Beth has been in the “Education Business” for 23 years: Teacher, Preschool Director, Cued Language Transliterator. As the mother of two college kids and wife of a mailman/Army Reservist, Beth’s free time is spent watching reality TV shows and reading.
She currently works as a technical writer/project associate at the American Institutes for Research, a non-profit behavioral and social sciences research organization in Washington, DC.
Grace Consacro and Steve Scher: Grace Consacro and Steve Scher are native cuers. They are the proud parents of three year old twin daughters, Lola and Ella, and a one year old son, Max. All three children are deaf and have cochlear implants. Steve is a stay-at-home dad and the current president of the Maryland Cued Speech Association. Grace is a teacher for the Montgomery County school system, in the deaf/hard of hearing program.
Catharine McNally: Catharine is a native of North Carolina and moved to Arlington, VA after graduating from Wake Forest University in 2006. Her parents chose cued speech when she was two years old because it presented her with best opportunity for full inclusion in social and educational settings. Catharine currently works at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and is a frequent visitor of the Washington, D.C. art museums. She can also be found playing tennis with her older brother, taking long walks with friends, and cooking up new creations in the kitchen!
Duke Osborne: Duke is the cueing father of a deaf son, Ben, and hearing daughter, Maddie. He learned to cue not long after Ben lost his hearing in October 1995 (when Ben was 3 ½ years old), and is a past President of the Maryland Cued Speech Association. Along with Ben and Maddie’s mother, he was strongly attracted to cueing because it provides access to literacy by conveying the phonemes of the spoken language (American English in this case). Ben is fully mainstreamed in school, relying on a CST and his cochlear implant. Both Ben and Maddie attend school in Montgomery County, Maryland. Duke lives in Silver Spring, plays in a weekly pickup basketball game, and is trying to learn Spanish.
Danielle Paquin: Danielle Paquin is a New Englander at heart who somehow found herself after receiving her Masters in Education of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, in the middle of San Antonio, TX teaching deaf children to listen and speak at Sunshine Cottage School for Deaf Children. Raised orally, it wasn’t until high school that she learned to sign and soon after in her freshman year of college, she picked up Cued Speech from a friend while attending LEAP (Leadership Enrichment Adventure Program) put on by AGBell. She received her first cochlear implant at the age of 20 and her second in 2007. To keep busy she can often be found cycling, running and swimming in the TX Hill Country, training for triathlons and marathons, to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. As if she wasn’t busy enough, she is very involved in AGBell with the LOFT program, currently serves on the Board of Directors for TX AGBell and NCSA.
Mary-Beth Robie: At nine months old, a bout of meningitis left Mary-Beth with a profound bilateral hearing loss. Despite living in a rural area in northern Vermont where Cued Speech was basically unheard of, her parents pursued to provide Mary-Beth visual access to the English language via Cued Speech. At the age of 8, she was one of the first 500 recipients implanted with the Nucleus 22. Currently, Mary-Beth lives 20 miles west of Chicago and is the Lead Photo Coordinator for RR Donnelley.
Aaron Rose: Aaron is an adult deaf cuer who was born with profound bilateral hearing loss due to Connexin 26 disorder. Diagnosed at 18 months, Aaron became an expressive cuer at 2 years old and received the cochlear implant when he was 7 years old. A product of the New Hanover County Schools in North Carolina, Aaron went to North Carolina State University and graduated with a B.S. in Marine Sciences. He currently works as a server at Red Lobster and resides in Oakbrook Terrace, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. Aaron will begin his graduate studies in Deaf Education at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis this fall.
Esther Rimer: Esther became profoundly deaf as a result of meningitis at age 2 and was introduced to cued speech at age 4. She is a native of upstate South Carolina, but decided to go northward for college and consequently graduated from Wellesley College. After 4 years she came right back down to where the boiled peanuts are, where her time is currently occupied by figuring out her long term plan to go into archaeology, as well as more nebulous and random activities, like being a sloth, trying to grow yogurt on the counter and working to become a certified cued speech instructor.
