cued speech as a communications strategy for people with hearing loss
Cued speech can be an effective communications strategy for people with hearing loss.
It is a system that accommodates the visual presentation of
speech information. Through a combination of handshapes, hand placement,
and non-manual markers, a person using cued speech is able to visually
provide the same information that a person with normal hearing receives
aurally.
Cued speech provides significant additional information for
speechreaders. Skilled speechreaders are often able to decipher the
majority of a spoken message, but may have difficulty discriminating
troublesome sounds. (See speech reading.) Cued
speech can effectively
provide the cues that assist a speechreader in completing the message.
Cued speech proponents maintain that it provides a deaf child with
the same language information as a child with normal hearing. Because of
this capability, some people claim that cued speech is the most efficient and effective method
of providing English literacy to deaf children.
More Information:
Cued Speech
National Cued
Speech Association
Cued
Language Network of America (CLNA)
DailyCues.com
Cuetah
April 2001 - Interested in cued speech? The second edition of the Cued
Speech Resource Book has just been released.
June 2001 - Interested in a cued speech class? Here's a list
of classes throughout the US.
April 2005 - The National Cued Speech Association
Unveils New Website!
May 2006 - Elementary Class Learns Cueing For Deaf
Classmate
July 2006 - New Approach on Deaf Literacy Heartening
September 2006 - Cued Speech Produces Strong Academic
Results
December 2006 - Free
Cued Speech Media Available from National Cued Speech Association
June 2007 - Foundation donates 100k to ISU for
teaching cued speech to deaf
October 2008 - Cued Speech Version of Software for
Teaching Phonics to Deaf Children
February 2009 - New CuedSpeech.com website
highlights information and products
October 2009 - My CueTutor Brings Cued Speech to
the Internet!
February 2010 - Current Issue of "On Cue" Now
Available Online
July 2010 - Rockville parents opt for Cued Speech
October 2010 - Deaf Parents Teach Cued Speech to Deaf
Kids
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May 2006
At
Deerwood Elementary school in Eagan, an entire classroom volunteered to
give up going outside for recess. They've made that sacrifice since
October so they could learn how to communicate with a special classmate.
His name is Justin Feeser and he's deaf. Justin Feeser said his
friendships have improved, now that his buddies are learning how to cue.
They're not learning sign language. The y're learning cueing -- hand
signals that help deaf people to read lips. Different positions of the
hand help to provide a visual cue for each sound of each word.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
July 2006
Advocates
are heartened that a system of teaching deaf children English is beginning
to take hold, despite fears among many in the deaf community that it
diminishes their culture. Advocates say a phonetically based technique
called cued speech can improve literacy rates among deaf students even if
not used primarily for speaking. They point out that the average
18-year-old deaf high school graduate reads on a third- or fourth-grade
level.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
September
2006
Zainab
Alkebsi, 18, writes for the student newspaper at the University of
Maryland, Baltimore County, which she attends on a full academic
scholarship. Rockville native Allison Kaftan, 25, is pursuing a doctorate
in English at George Washington University. Jeff Majors, 33, studies
computer programming in Houston.
If they
weren't deaf, they would simply be high-achievers. But when the average
American deaf 18-year-old reads at just a fourth-grade level, these
students' accomplishments are as noteworthy as their secret to success is
controversial.
As children, Alkebsi, Kaftan and Majors learned English through a technique
called cued speech, which helps deaf people accurately read lips by using
eight hand signs that signify, depending on their placement around the
mouth, different phonetic sounds.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Editor:
The folks at the National Cued Speech Association have made available
some wonderful resources for the very favorable price of FREE!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two
acclaimed informational media disks are available from the National Cued
Speech Association (NCSA).
"Breaking
the Code: Unlocking the Cue-rriculum" is a 10-minute film on DVD.
Created from historic and new footage, the film interviews parents,
professionals, and deaf individuals.
It is fully captioned and sign-interpreted. You can preview it at
anytime at youtube.com (search: Cued Speech).
"Cued
Speech for Special Needs" is a combination video / PowerPoint
presentation about the use of Cued Speech for purposes other than or in
addition to hearing loss, such as autism, articulation, auditory
processing, phonemic awareness, Down Syndrome, and more.
This CD requires Microsoft Windows plus Internet Explorer.
It is of particular interest to speech-language pathologists,
audiologists, parents and educators.
To
receive a copy of one or both disks, contact the NCSA office at info@cuedspeech.org
or 800-459-3529 with your request, address, telephone and email. These
copies are made available with funding from the U.S. Department of
Education, H234E050024.
The
National Cued Speech Association and its Deaf Children's Literacy
Project champion effective communication, language acquisition and
literacy through the use of Cued Speech.
Literacy is the original and primary goal of Cued Speech,
achieved by providing clear communication in the appropriate phonemic
language base for learning to read. Cued Speech also supports the
development of lipreading, auditory discrimination, and speech.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June 2007
The same man who inspired Kirsten Kempe to become a
teacher of deaf students had further impact on her career choice Tuesday.
Ben Lachman announced his parents' foundation will donate $100,000 over
five years to Illinois State University to promote the teaching of cued
speech for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Kempe, who is not deaf, is a
senior from Riverside majoring in deaf education. She was inspired to bec
ome a teacher by her 10-year friendship with Lachman, who uses cued
speech. People who use “cued speech” speak English and read lips, but they
augment that by using hand signals to differentiate some sounds, such as
those of the letters B and P, that are hard for lip readers to
distinguish.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
February 2010
The most recent issue (winter 2009) of On Cue
focuses on cochlear implants plus Cued Speech. Articles give the
experiences of deaf cuers, parents and professionals.
Read it here!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
July 2010
In 2005, Rockville residents Steve Scher and Grace
Consacro learned their twin daughters, Lola and Ella, were born with
hearing losses. The parents, who have hearing loss, said they wanted
their daughters to grow up learning and communicating with the spoken
word, as they had. At 18 months, Lola and Ella underwent surgery for
cochlear implants. Many of the couple's deaf acquaintances and friends
criticized them for the decision. "Some deaf people think you should wait
and let the children decide," Consacro said. "But we thought it was
important to do it. We saw it as the best choice possible for the
children." The couple's son, Max, born two years later, received cochlear
implants at 14 months. After several years of raising their children to
learn a type of communication among the deaf and hard of hearing known as
Cued Speech, the couple was recently honored with the national Cueing
Family Award at a ceremony at Flower Valley Elementary School in
Rockville, where Consacro teaches. The award, which recognizes dedicated
parenting or support of youths who are deaf or hard of hearing using Cued
Speech, was presented by the National Cued Speech Association in Bethesda,
a nonprofit group that advocates use of the speech.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
October 2010
Born deaf to deaf parents, identical twins Lola
and Ella Scher of Rockville learned from the beginning to talk with their
hands. When they were 9 months old, they produced their first word: shoe.
If they had used American Sign Language, or ASL, they would have said
"shoe" by tapping their fists together twice. But their parents used a
different form of communication, cued speech. So they taught each girl to
make an "L" shape with her right hand, touching her index finger to her
chin. That wasn't a symbol, like the ASL gesture; instead, it signaled how
the word sounds in spoken English. They would have used the same gesture
to say "shoo!" Grace Consacro and Steve Scher had grown up using cued
speech, and they taught it to their twins, now 5, and their deaf son, Max,
who is 3. In May, the National Cued Speech Association recognized the
family for its dedication to cueing.
Full Story
