Growing up with Cued Speech

I want to discuss Cued speech, the advantages it has and why it should be offered as another option along with ASL. ASL is a wonderful language and a great tool used to communicate with the deaf people in the community. The language is strong, beautiful and there are so many types ranging from different countries. It has done well for the deaf community for many centuries and has no signs of going anywhere. However there is another type of tool that some deaf people use, myself included. Many are against it for so many reasons, but I would like to discuss it and show that it should be offered as a great option along with ASL too.

When my parents found out I was deaf they did what most every other parent would do, turn to the books and people to learn about ASL. They tried to learn the language, sent me to a deaf school, and I tried to learn it. I just was not picking it up at all. ASL just was not working for me at all. It was slowing my ability to talk, and my parents wanted me to be able to talk as well. My mother was in the doctor’s office one day and came across a sesame street magazine with an article discussing cued speech. They gave an example of a girl, my age, which had the same loss I did and was trying to talk and how much cued speech had helped her so much and how it was a much better tool in terms of oral and lip reading.

To quickly brief you on what cued speech is, there are eight cues, or hand shapes if you will. Focusing only on, around or near the lip, side of mouth, throat and side of face. These eight cues create the visible aid to see how words are formed. Each movement of that cue reflects one enunciation. So if a word has 3 enunciations, like dou-bl-u, for W you will see three movements. This signifies the word has three enunciations.

My mother was amazed how quickly the girl picked up on the cueing, and how quickly she learned to talk, and read lips and how she excelled in reading and her vocabulary. This really peaked her interest as at the moment ASL was not working for us. She called the number in the article to inquire about cued speech and rest was history. She got hooked on it and learned it.

I was pulled out of the deaf school, with much protest as you can imagine. Parents were doing the wrong thing; they were not doing what was best for me or the deaf community. That sort of thing. It seems many protested against me learning cued because it pulled me away from the deaf community; it supported hearing and oralism, basically anything that was not “deaf”.

Once I started learning cued how to read it and the “cues”, my speech improved dramatically along with the help of speech therapy. I was able to visually see the words, and how they were pronounced, and once I saw it, I could sound it out with my voice. ASL could not help me with it nor would it ever in my case. My reading skills soared as well and my vocabulary got big also. However it should be made clear, cued speech is NOT a language nor has anyone ever claimed it to be. It is simply only a tool used to aid us in speaking capabilities, and lip reading. I wanted to be sure and clear that myth up, and those of us who know cued don’t ever try to claim it as a language nor have I really heard that either.

Again, only speaking for me and situation, cued speech worked tremendously for me and in my situation. ASL would not have worked for me, and given me the ability to do the things I can do now being deaf. I tremendously support cued speech for everything it does, and strongly advise it for at least educational purposes. ASL is by far the better one to use to communicate with other deaf people who know ASL. ASL is the linkage and I respect and understand that. However I wanted to bring up cued because it does exist, you cannot ignore it and it has made great strides in this community also. I cringe when I hear people talk to parents of deaf people bringing up only ASL and nothing else. I am not cringing that they are bringing up ASL but am cringing they are leaving out the option of cued speech too. It could be maybe cued will work better then ASL for that child’s situation, and just very well maybe it will not. You don’t know until you check BOTH options out.

Like with everything else there are disadvantages that need to be brought up. One is, it is not widely known. It is very hard to find someone else who also knows or understand cues. Cued Speech is not used as an accommodation for events such as plays, concerts, meetings, and speeches. It takes a long time to learn, between six months to a full year to be completely fluent in Cued speech. It is universal in the sense that once you learn cued, you can go to any country and use cued speech to translate that language.

I am taking the time to learn your language, ASL but I want you to acknowledge that there are other options to learn such as cued speech. I thoroughly enjoy learning ASL with my friend Geo and others through books and such. It is very exciting to learn a new language of any stature, and ASL is certainly no exception. I just want to be sure that cued was not left out and that it was a viable option to consider as well.