Marla Holt (ASL advocate) Replies in Response to Baltimore Sun's Cued Speech article

In my recent blog I wrote a piece yesterday about Cued Speech regarding the Baltimore Sun's coverage on Cued Speech. The newspaper also covered Marla Holt, coordinator of deaf services at the University of Baltimore, said that she was overly reluctant on not providing Cued Speech transliterator should a deaf student of Baltimore University. This seems to be an exaggeration presented on the newspaper's part according to Queen Alpo's blog "My thounge ith fath" (ie My tongue is fat) about the email response she got from Marla Holt after writing to her about her supposed lack of deaf services support for those requesting Cued Speech transliterators.

First of all, I am quite angry with that article. That reporter came to interview me; I have no idea how he knew of me and UB's service. In addition, a friend of mine was here as well. The reporter spoke with us for over an hour, mostly with Nancy Billingslea who is a Deaf woman and an adjunct professor, the Manager of Deaf Services with Humanim, the first Deaf to come to UB to receive her first master's degree, and has begun her second Master's. Not one quote was mentioned from her, and the one from me was quite out of context and poorly and wrongly stated. Nancy ’s comments were quite open-minded and fairly stated.

It is true that I have never been asked to provide cued speech transliteration. If ever I am, it will be provided. The University of Baltimore Disability Support Services office is well-known as one of the most accommodating and accessible universities for students requiring its services. I believe that one reason for that reputation is that each staff person in DSS has a disability; therefore, our attitude is to accommodate each student to be at the level of all students and to achieve his/her best. I fully understand needing whatever it takes to succeed.
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You are a strong advocate of cued speech, and I am not attacking that position at all! However, I know of very few Deafs who agree with you, and nearly every Deaf person I know is knowledgeable about cued speech. Perhaps both of us are making assumptions of each other’s point of view.

Read the rest of the email. Something to think about whether to trust newspaper reporters who may have a habit of taking quotes out of context.

Although Queen Alpo responded in her blog about the email she receieved with a few nagging thoughts.

I was quite relieved to receive her e-mail. Although my gut feeling is that she and I still don't se completely eye-to-eye (for example, she says she knows of lots of people who don't like cueing even though they know what it's for), she comes off quite differently than the hearing self-appointed "omniscient" I thought it sounded like she was.

She does make an extremely salient point - the oft-used argument by cueing advocates that while cuers interviewed for articles like this read at post-secondary levels while the average deaf person reads at fourth-grade level is really arrogant when you consider that the hearing average is, I believe, only at the sixth-grade level. (Huge difference - not.) Plus, use it with the deaf non-cuer, and it's a huge turnoff. I wish the NCSA and other organizations and advocates who use that argument in marketing cueing would keep that in mind, especially considering the undeniable fact that cueing has yet to make inroads in the deaf community.

Read the rest of Queen Alpo's response regarding Marla Holt's email to her. Quite interesting and fascinating to a degree.

Hat tip: Queen Alpo in my comment box.