Communication with Deaf & Hard of Hearing People
Cued Speech is the combination of one-handed cues with speech reading. A Deaf person speech-reads the mouth movements of speech combined with the cued signals indicating the sounds of a spoken language.
Cued Speech is used by parents, educators and friends of deaf persons. Cued Speech can be used with any language and dialect in the world. Because of the way the cues combine all the constants and vowels of a language, with consistent and effective use, the cuer automatically cues any word in the dictionary effortlessly. It is not a case of learning a particular ‘sign’ for a word, as it is often the case with sign languages.
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[Edit]1 Handshapes
In the case of cueing English, there are eight distinct handshapes that distinguish the consonants and vowels of the language. There are four main locations around the face, (the chin, the cheek, front of the cheek and on the base of the neck/top part of the chest). When a handshape and a location are combined, it is a cue for a syllable. Some examples include ‘ay’, ‘at’, ‘ph’, ‘g’, and so on.
[Edit]2 History of Cued Speech
In the mid 1960s, the late Dr. Orin Cornett, of Washington DC, USA, developed a visual communication system for deaf people that came to be known as Cued Speech. Dr. Cornett developed Cued Speech with the reasoning that pure oralism is difficult for many deaf children to learn their mother language and the fact that native sign languages, while languages in their own right is often not English or the dominant spoken language of the deaf person’s country. The main aim of Cued Speech is to provide literacy and language for the user. Cued Speech also assists with the development of lip-reading. Instead of hearing the spoken language, one sees the language. Cued Speech is a visual accompaniment to a mother tongue.
The first deaf person to use Cued Speech in the world was Leah Henegar of the USA. After learning of the success of Leah’s reception to Cued Speech, the use of Cued Speech soon spread to other parts of the globe, including Australia, Britain and Europe.
The founder of Cued Speech, Dr. Orin Cornett, died in 2002. His legacy of Cued Speech lives on.
[Edit]3 Rationale for Cued Speech
[Edit]4 Organisations
The National Cued Speech Association
(http://www.cuedspeech.org)
