Hooked on Visual Phonics - cued speech

Recently there has been another little round of huffiness over a recent article on cued speech written in the Washington Post. Either some people feel threatened by the title "Cued Speech Could Gain Popularity Among Deaf" or the fact that the article said about the similarity of cued speech to that of sign language (ASL) in the subtitle, "An alternate form of sign language could be gaining momentum in the deaf community."

Not knowing the full distinction between the two the writer is correct about the similarity and that it uses hand gestures as part of the communication package. Though I don't think the writer was attempting to equate cued speech as the equivalent of ASL as a language.

Here below is an excerpt in one of my blog I did on that subject back in 2006.

Cued speech or more appropriately Cued English is now believed to be the best source of visual language support for the spoken English language and it’s ability to identify idiomatic expressions and nuances. The main purpose of Cued Speech is not for speech purposes but for literacy.

You can read the rest of what I've written about cued speech back in 2006. Lots of information and explaination on what cued speech is about.

Also, you can watch four YouTube videos of native cuers with two subjects being an ASL signer. Those videos were blogged back in 2008 and be sure to watch the fourth video at the bottom in my blog.

And here's a recent article written in the Washington Post a few days ago about about cued speech highlighting the first known family to exclusively use cued speech for their deaf kids and not ASL or any signing methods at home.

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.

"As far as we know, we're the only family [in the country] that uses cued speech exclusively," said Consacro, 34, who teaches both cued speech and ASL at Flower Valley Elementary School in Rockville. (note by Kokonut Pundit, she does not teach ASL - see Washington Post error correction).

This mother of two deaf twins made an important point about cued speech.

"It's not intended to be anything more than an aid to learn a language,"

There you go. An aid to help develop language. In this case, the English language even though cued speech can be used and adapted to with any spoken language throughout the world.

Another advantage of cued speech for deaf/hh children is to allow a relatively smooth transition into the hearing world. The article ends with a very profound remark from the same mother who uses cued speech.

Sometimes, the Scher-Consacro twins misinterpret or mispronounce words; but they can now follow conversations and speak very much like hearing children.

"My kids are deaf," Consacro said. "They have the miracle of the technology of cochlear implants, [and] they have the language from their dad and I cueing - it just works."

It just works. Just as I have said before, the power of hearing technology helps make oralism (oral-auditory) a very powerful draw due to its continuing successes. Oralism cannot be "stamped out" in favor of ASL. So, it's a matter of time until cued speech finally takes off nationwide on such a large scale. You can thank Gallaudet University for helping facilitate the start of cued speech.

Here's your chance to learn more about cued speech in a video below.