I’ve been watching this video on cued speech and I must say I’m quite ambivalent.
On the one hand, it blows all the other codes I’ve seen out the water. And it actually assists in lipreading. I mean, it’s seamless. It works with the phonetics and words, and if you don’t quite pick something up with lipreading, which is inevitable, you can fill in the gaps with the coding. It’s fast and is pretty easy to learn. It doesn’t try to pretend to be a sign language.
On the other hand, it struck me that the most fluent cued speechers in that video…are hearing people! Just watch the various different people on there. Cued speech runs into the exact same problem all auditory-directed teaching eventually does: the deaf child may or may not be able to speak, and if he or she can’t, then there will be an inherent limitation on their ability to use it.
In an ideal world, I could see this fitting into a child’s education under a bi-bi approach to assist with learning English. It seems like it could be a way for hearing family members to be able to communicate with the child — they wouldn’t have to learn some other language which might enable more to learn the cues. In a not so ideal world, it seems yet another way to browbeat the child with more speech therapy (despite the fact that it looks like it could be used just fine with the speech therapy part optional).
I’m also suspicious of all the research that they cite. First of all, I haven’t seen that there’s all that much good research out there, and second, I haven’t seen a whole lot done by anyone besides hearie people so the charge of bias is unavoidable. And my favorite statistic, the average reading level of deaf students is never contrasted with the average reading level of hearing students, which is actually generally only one to two grade levels above (gnarlydorkette recently pointed out how atrocious most peoples’ ability to write is). That puts that stat in a slightly different light, doesn’t it?
However, I note that as an orally trained deafie who is presently having a ball learning ASL, I’m not personally remotely interested in learning cued speech. 
Perhaps in the end that’s all I need to say…
Mdegraw
Wed Feb 16, 2005
“I am the Father of a 4 year old deaf child. She is profoundly deaf. We have decided not to implant, but have chosen Cued Speech to communicate with her. Every time I run into a deaf person that uses ASL, they get mad at me for choosing Cued Speech. Why is this? As a parent my language is English, not ASL. I feel it better to teach my child my language. There will plenty of time for her and I to learn ASL as she grows up.
I’m interested in seeing the responses from the deaf community. Some facts to ponder before posting… My daughter, now 4 years old reads 40 words, knows all of her colors, knows her alphabet through letter F and counts to 5. Cued Speech is obviously helping her learn English.”
Matt
http://www.cuedspeech.org/PDF/NCSA_Scholarships-06.pdf
http://www.cuedspeech.org/#
Matt,
It’s great that you’re using Cued Speech to teach your child the language of English. However, I would encourage that you and your child learn both English and ASL instead of just English.
Both are two different languages. They are completely different. There aren’t “plenty of time” to learn a language. As your child get older, the more difficult it will be for her to learn a different language. In fact, it’s crucial for a child to acquire at least one language by the age of five. Once they start school and participate in after-school activities and not only to mention your job taking up a lot of your time, you will find it more difficult to learn a new language. That’s why it’s important that parents start the progress of language development with their children within the first five years.
“Every time I run into a deaf person that uses ASL, they get mad at me for choosing Cued Speech. Why is this?”
Well, there will always be people who will make a reaction like the one you just described. There’s I can do about that. I’m fluent in both ASL and English. A deaf child will find it more natural to sign and enjoy conversations more without having to constantly look at the person’s face to understand what is being said.
I’m a blogger and write quite a number of deaf-related materials along with the occasional vlog. In fact, I caption my vlog entries for the hearing and non-ASL users.
What I’m trying to suggest is that you don’t focus on just Cued Speech but on more than just one method and language. Your child will benefit from learning more than just one language.
“As a parent my language is English, not ASL. I feel it better to teach my child my language.”
It’s not the parent’s language that makes it better, it’s a must as the child will be growing up in a country where English is the primary language. I encourage both English and ASL to be two equal languages in a deaf child’s life. I see it as a benefit because I grew up with both ASL and English.
Remember, cued speech is not a language. It’s a code to teach the language of English. There are a lot of codes out there and cued speech is one of the most successful tools that I know of. I also happen to know a few people who use it and are fluent in ASL too. I even know some cochlear implantees who are fluent in ASL and English and they also happen to be cued speech users.
I don’t always expect a parent of a deaf child to understand as they don’t walk in our shoes. There are many kinds of deaf people out there, we’re quite diverse these days.
Just wanted to share something with you, I certainly hope you don’t dismiss the language of ASL. It’s quite a beautiful language and your child will love it. It doesn’t mean she won’t learn English, she will be eager to learn more than just one language. I know I was when I was a kid.
Paul (aka Banjo of ‘Banjo’s World’)
Paul
many years ago, I saw a deaf child who was about five who used Cue Speech and so did her parents. She grew into teenager at what time she continued to sign using SEE.
I wonder if both Cue Speech and ASL are good balanced. You know that ASL is always voice off and ASL is native language.
Floridagirl
“Remember, cued speech is not a language. It’s a code to teach the language of English.”
“Misconception: Cued Speech is inappropriate because it is not a language.
There are still those who hold to the misconception that Cued Speech is unacceptable for deaf children because it is not a language. This is likely to be an unfortunate backlash from well-intentioned (but misguided) attempts to supplant American Sign Language with manually coded English systems like Signing Exact English or Conceptually Accurate Signed English.
It is true that Cued Speech itself is not a language. Rather, Cued Speech is a modality for language. To understand the difference between modality and language, consider the fact that speech and signing are also modalities and NOT languages.
SIGNING is a visual modality for languages like American Sign Language, British Sign language, etc.
SPEECH is an acoustic modality for languages like English, French, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, etc.
CUED SPEECH is a visual modalilty for languages like English, French, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, etc. Cued Speech is mode which allows languages to be conveyed completely and accuractely through a visual medium.
Some languages once existed solely as spoken languages. However, for some, written systems were devised to represent these languages in a visual medium. Although an alphabet is not a language, nor is writing itself a language, the text you are reading on this page does convey language. You are reading written English. It is a different form than spoken English. Cued Speech does not function like an alphabet nor like a written language, but this analogy invites us to consider that Cued Speech is not a language, while cued English is a language.
So while speech, signing, and Cued Speech are themselves not languages, each can be used as a viable modality for language. American Sign Language and cued English are valid languages for use with deaf children. Spoken English and spoken French are valid languages for hearing children.
REALITY: Cued Speech is not a manually coded English sign system. Cued English is a language – one which is complete, natural, and delivered in a wholly visual medium.”
http://www.cuedspeech.info/language.html
Matt,
Being a native user of ASL myself, I have read so much about Cued English and Cued Language. Putting aside my own bias, I find it beneficial to deaf children born to hearing parents who are not interested in learning ASL even though I feel ASL is an important exposure to every deaf child at a young age from a bilingual perspective.
My understanding is to effectively model a language for acquisition to occur, mastery in a certain language is of paramount importance. Between one of Manually Coded English systems (SEE1, SEE2, Total Communication, Pidgin Signed English, Rochester Method and LOVE)/Oralism and Cued English, I’ll choose the latter. Cued English is a visual counterpart of spoken English, which is linguistically sound — rich in language with grammar, rules, syntax, etc like ASL or any other signed languages of the world.
However, I have an issue with how “speech” was put after cued as one doesn’t have to have speech skills in order to cue. Why is speech used not English or Language after Cued like we see with spoken English or Language?
Many hearing people’s reception of cueing is weak to a point they force deaf cuers to voice (good or bad) to help them grasp what they are cueing. That is where I have a problem with because the focus needs to be on language development and literacy.
Here is a great source to go to:
http://www.language-matters.com/
I have so much respect for Dr. Melanie Metzger and Mr. Earl Fleetwood in their work and dedication, including ASL other than Cued English/Language.
Katherine
katherine
Some of hearing parents will struggle with fluently sign language in ASL when it will be not equal, for deaf children can communicate in fluently sign language if they can’t speak. How do parents and deaf children communicate with each other?
That’s an excellent question…yes, it makes much more sense to refer to it as Cued [Language]. That emphasizes the fact that it is only a coding system.
I do think it has good applications in education, as I said, given a bi-bi educational approach, Cued English seems like a good way to teach English to deaf children without the rigmarole of other manually coded systems.
I have no idea how well it helps or not with lipreading…I think that’s a personal talent independent of the teaching, like some people are naturally athletic and others are not. I’m an excellent lipreader, but honestly I didn’t have all *that* much speech therapy before I gave them the boot…
i am deaf parent of 4 hearing kids. They learned ASL since 9 mos old . they know lots of words in ASL before they could speak. After 2 yrs old, they picked up with speaking in English. They are fluent in ASL and Speaking in english when they getting older . ASL is vision language for us . I am profoundly Deaf and I was raised by oralism method, I was frustrated and missed lots of communications around me when i grew up . It was very limited to me . I could not able to involved in conversation of three or more people . then i used Signed Exact English from 9 yrs old to 13 yrs old .I learned more but not lots more . My parents were willingly to learn SEE . From 14 yrs old to now ,I learned ASL when I was in MSSD. Tt opened my mind even more!! I picked up more information more quickly in my education … ASL showed me lots of explaination like it is my true lauguage …I went deeply in ASL . My parents are still signing to me but They are not fluent in ASL … I encouraged you taking ASL and u will understand why ASL is a true language .Ur daughter will learn more in reading and writing in english and learns in ASL It wont hurt her education . She can even benefits from speech training too but ASL too .. It wont confused her .. U can tell her it is separated language for ASL and spoken english … Your daughter is born with the vision by eyes .. You born by listening by ur ears … we tend to use lots of gestures because of we depend on vision … I feel that they take away my gestures and my vision by forcing me to lipreading and speech training …It is not natural for us ….
Oh, that damned reading statistic. I’m so sick of that. Government documents in this country are supposedly written at a damned 6th grade level, and we’re giving deaf people a hard time. Puh. LEEZE. I wonder what convenient excuse for underachievement I can come up with to explain all those utterly illiterate and illogically constructed “term papers” I read when I was grading Geoscience for Non-Majors at UCI (Rocks for Jocks).
Hey there,
I’m a native cuer. I have been using Cued speech since I was 2 years old which is about 20 years ago. I know those people in the clips, not all of those people are hearing.
Some of them are deaf. I didn’t learn ASL til I was sophomore in high school. BTW, I was implanted at the age of two too. Umm, my parent did what they thought that is best for me and I am thankful for that. Because it has helped me so much academically and socially. Even tho, I know ASL and have deaf partner, I still use cued speech in workplace, school, with friends, and with my family.
It looks so awkward. I met a few cued speech users, one thing that stood out is that they were “poor lipreaders’. I was surprised. I could see that they are able to speak very well. But lipreading, no. I don’t want to imply that its true of all of them, it just what I saw. I would much rather have my child learn ASL.I grew up oral, I went for speech training, I failed in speech but excelled in lipreading. Perhaps there will be always something lacking until one day we all can come to a total agreement of what educational method is best. Michele
It’s not awkward to me. It feels very natural. About lip-reading, it’s interesting observation you have. I never thought about it because I basically understand whole message no matter what. The transliterators usually move their lips very clearly which is more important. I was told that I talk and cue very fast which I can believe because I talk mile a minute!
Umm… I guess it depends on cuers you meet, but I know that all transliterators are required to move their lips very clearly for cuers to get the whole message.
Hey there, thanks for commenting on this thread. I was curious to know a bit more about the scope of Cued Speech/English in your life. I would expect, of course, school and family to use it, but you mention workplace as well — do you mean people where you work learned cued speech?
I’m overall interested in learning what the extent of contact using cued speech is especially as it seems less widespread than many of the other coded systems.
When my work have meeting or whatever, they always provide cued speech transliterators. Also, I am advocate for cued speech at my work since I work with deaf patients at local cochlear implant center.
Also if parents take the time to learn ASL, their child probably will do well in school academically and socially. Many deaf people gravitate towards ASL, I being one of them so if it works well, then why have to come up with other methods when ASL is the “answer”. Deaf children can also learn speech too as there is always a speech therapist available at schools so if they combine ASL and speech, I’m sure it will work out well. Is there research being done on ASL and speech?
For parent to master at ASL, it will take them years. To learn Cued Speech, it only take less than 20 hours. And much faster to master and the child are guaranteed to full access to English.
That’s because ASL is a language, Cued Speech is a tool used to teach English. It’s not entirely true about taking the parents years to master ASL. They can learn the basics of it within a few weeks depending on how motivated the parents are. The child will be able to acquire ASL at a much, much faster rate in comparison to the parents as their brains are like sponges. They absorb information like a computer.
On one note, Cued Speech can be used to teach any spoken languages from what I know since it’s a tool. Pretty interesting, I’ll say.
Yes, the part about using it in other languages I found very cool. The clip has a brief “Je m’appelle” clip demonstrating how it can be used.
I must say I was speechless. I see in their eyes that they were very struggling. They had to stop themselves to think and to try figure how to speak right then to speak. I remember about my speech therapy who made me to speak in front of people and I hate the way I felt when I spoke.
I am more comfortable using ASL.. My true language..
Aidan
Aidan
Irrefutable Proof Bi-Bi does NOT Work!, Quite a Shocker…
http://deafreedom.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1614&mode=linear
This is most certainly not irrefutable proof, as there is nothing here to indicate which students came early or late to language. There is a considerable body of evidence that demonstrates language acquisition at home prior to school is of crucial importance and few deaf children of hearing parents have that luxury. Without these data, this table tells us little.
Edit: When I originally wrote this, Matt’s comment above had no identifying information on it, hence the following paragraph; however Matt was quite gracious about it. I still don’t know what was up about the Floridagirl part, though.
Now, you are the same “anonymous” who posted about the four year old daughter learning cued. Please note: I welcome posts here, but if you try to turn this thread into an anti ASL rant, I will delete and block further posts from you.
Well, you will see that I’ve posted quite a few times in that thread. This was a thread that went on more than a couple years ago. I regret some of what I’ve said in the past about the Bi-Bi educational program but it’s true that the Bi-Bi program we are exposed to in several schools resulted in poor grades. But they didn’t do any better when they were oralists either. I think the real issue is that every deaf child are different and may react differently to each type of educational program.
One size don’t fit all.
The truth about the Bi-Bi approach is that it’s heavily abused in many schools for the deaf. You see, they put ASL above English. That’s not what it is about. Both languages are to be equal in an educational setting.
I do believe that the Bi-Bi educational concept can and will work if it’s done right. Right now, there is no nationwide guidelines for a Bi-Bi educational setting in schools for the deaf. The politics can get quite ugly when it come to deaf education. The best way to ensure that it’s a success is when a child is exposed to both English and ASL before the age of five in its home. If not, then the child is more likely to struggle later in life because the parents aren’t bilingual.
California Schools for the Deaf, I’ve done my homework on both schools in California and it’s nothing impressive, no doubt about that. A lot of schools for the deaf are funded by the state governments and often employ under-qualified educators and administrators. This is the cold truth of how state governments think of these schools. :-/
That, I think, is absolutely the crux of the matter. Education, even of the hearies, really, is just a complete mess. So the more the parents can involve themselves, teach themselves, stay connected with what’s going on with their child’s education, the better, I think. But how many parents have the time and wherewithal for that? Again, even for hearing children. And parents of the deaf have the additional problem of little to no or even bad information to contend with. So it’s a nasty, nasty problem…
I’m also suspicious of all the research that they cite.
Also, look at the dates for the articles (none of which were specified as to where they came from; they could have been quoting their own literature for all we know). That really bothered me; the only article I can recall seeing that had a date as recent as the mid 90s was then “answered” in a following quote by something published in 1987.
Cueing seems useful, but … those dates bothered me. Why aren’t there published articles supporting its utility from later than the 70s and 80s, for pete’s sake? And if the cueing adults can act as ambassadors, then … let them. They had one cuer who spoke at some length, and many hearing people, as you said. I want to hear from twenty, thirty adult cuers — unrehearsed and not in a promotional video.
Precisely. Also, if you read the comments on the YouTube page itself, there’s one comment from a person who says she is doing her dissertation on cued speech — and that there’s no real research out there….!
Hmm… I am a native deaf cuer and I cue pretty well even though I use ASL as a primary language among the deaf.
“Cued speech runs into the exact same problem all auditory-directed teaching eventually does: the deaf child may or may not be able to speak, and if he or she can’t, then there will be an inherent limitation on their ability to use it.”
That’s not exactly accurate. You CAN cue without speech. Speech is not necessary for cueing. I don’t use it. Most of the time, I just mouth words with cues because my speech sucks.
I really support cued English in deaf education - I tell you, I am in Ethics class and you have no idea how much I wished I had a cued language transliterator! ASL just doesn’t do justice (and mind you, I do know ASL, it’s not the same thing - it’s knowing English that’s important - you need to know all the words.. the professor is very fond of using uncommon words such as impute, evince, sanctum, etc ).
You wrote: “And my favorite statistic, the average reading level of deaf students is never contrasted with the average reading level of hearing students, which is actually generally only one to two grade levels above”
To my knowledge, there’s no proof that the average hearing person reads at fifth or sixth grade level.
“In a not so ideal world, it seems yet another way to browbeat the child with more speech therapy”
Um, ideally, all deaf kids should learn to speak for it would be their advantage to know how to speak. Face it, speech has ALWAYS been a powerful tool for the deaf and if a deaf person is fortunate to speak well, he’ll take advantage of it to further his career. It’s just the way it works. Speech is useless AMONG the deaf, but definitely not useless if the deaf uses it WITH the non-signing hearing.
I may not speak well or hear well but if I have a deaf child, I would definitely make sure s/he learns to speak for his/her sake!
Cuem rocks!
I’ve written documents at work for state- and federal-level government consumption. We are strongly advised to write at a sixth-grade reading level.
And I could tell you stories about the illiterate nightmares I graded as a TA in the UC system, considered the premiere university system in the world. Sentences with no verb. Prepositions like croutons on a word salad. Spelling that was more like interpretive dance. Reading ANYTHING that appeared remotely literate was a once-a-month experience — maybe. Trust me, granting most hearing people a sixth-grade reading level is generous.
Jcotese
You can show me to have proof that the average hearing person reads at fifth or sixth grade level.
I met senior who graduated from Gallaudet in many years ago and he commented there was about over 400 Gallaudet students who were reading and English the high level of grade. It wasn’t fourth grade that college. It was what there was in most model of communication ( almost PSE) in Gallaudet College.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_school
My name is Ben and I’m a Cued Speech User. Before y’all jump to any conclusions, I’m not in rehab. I was born profoundly deaf and had Cued Speech Transliterators all the way through my educational career. I just graduated in 2005 with a Degree in English.
That said, I’m here cause someone said they wanted to hear from 20 or 30 cuers. Well, I can only speak for myself but I truly understand the dilemma that faces the deaf world.
Identity.
Face it, for the majority of us, our speech sucks. So it’s pretty easy to want to be part of something larger. I completely agree, its an amazing thing to have. However, I’ve always been ‘mainstreamed’ and somewhat ostracized by Deafies because of it. Call it pseudo-audism.
Fact is, I grew up with English as my first language. I sign some, but I’m not fluent. I know enough to get along in a conversation with a large group of Deafies. But I’m most comfortable talking and reading lips. Someone mentioned that Cued Speech users weren’t good lipreaders. That’s true, but isn’t it also true of all deaf people?
‘What’s That Pig Outdoors’ by Henry Kisor is a good example of that. Last I checked, Mr. Kisor was mostly Oral.
One interesting observation I had. It makes perfect sense to call Cued Speech, “Cued Language”. I’m affiliated with the National Cued Speech Association (www.cuedspeech.org) and it’s something we’ve addressed. I believe that eventually, things will change, but change moves like tar, not water.
Speaking of change, I think deaf people as a whole are smarter than they ever have been before. There truly are some intelligent deafies out there and that gratifies me. There are many methodologies out there and there are successes everywhere. There are failures too. Don’t you think it would be so much more valuable to have a large toolbox within the educational system, particularly deaf education. There are many needs. Communication, Language acquisition, development of social skills and basic education. For me, personally, Cued Speech was the tool that helped me develop the ability to do what it is that I do.
Hopefully at least one or two of you still believe that was authentic and not staged. I mean those evil hearies are puppetmasters, damn them.
I kid. It’s a good thing that we are discussing the future amongst ourselves. Shows promise.
Hey thanks for responding!
Just so people know where I am from, in case they’ve just dropped in on this entry, I’m oral deaf as well, raised with English as my first language and actually a pretty good speaker. But at this point in my life, I’m so annoyed with constantly being not quite good enough at catching what people say (that bit about lipreading — oh so true — I’m a good one, but I still miss too much) that I am determined to learn ASL (I know other languages) to finally learn something in which I will not have any limitations…
“As the national debate continued, Cued Speech was gaining respect on the national front. Dr. R. Orin Cornett invented Cued Speech in 1966 at Gallaudet College in order to solve the literacy problems that had plagued deaf education for generations. Although he didn’t know it at the time, Cued Speech would eventually break the paradigm, or pattern, for deaf education because it allowed deaf children to achieve in a way they never had before.”
“Hearing parents can learn Cued Speech in 10 to 15 hours and in a few months be able to say anything they want in real time without thinking.”
http://www.cuedspeech.org/sub/viewpoints/Breaking_the_Paradigm.asp
Point me to the literature, please… I’m seeing statements, but not seeing where they are backed up. In particular, one of the things that students complained about last October in the protests was the low literacy level among many students and the poor reputation that a degree from Gallaudet has in some quarters. If there’s been a break thru, I’d appreciate any pointers, thanks.
Just to point out: Cued Speech was “kicked out” of Gallaudet about 20 years ago. I don’t want to say it was because it was viewed as a threat to Deaf Identity but no other explanation has been offered. So despite the fact that Cued Speech was invented at Gallaudet….it hasn’t been a presence there for many many years, if that’s what you were trying to say.
“Cued Speech would eventually break the paradigm, or pattern, for deaf education because it allowed deaf children to achieve in a way they never had before.”
That’s the claim I’m looking to see backed up by something other than simple assertion, as is done here…thanks! How is it a breakthrough? Where has it been a breakthrough? What methodologies and measurements were used to decide it was a breakthrough? Etc.
For Hearing Parents of Deaf children, I think Cued Speech is the next best thing.
Many Hearing people find learning true ASL really hard, but Cued Speech relatively easy. If that gives a way for Hearing families to communicate easily with their Deaf family member, more power to them!!!
Being exposed to the most language possible, especially in the early years, will give the Deaf child the most advantage.
But I would still encourage them to try to bring native ASL speakers into their child’s lives to expose them to true sign language as much as possible as early as possible.
“Many Hearing people find learning true ASL really hard, but Cued Speech relatively easy. If that gives a way for Hearing families to communicate easily with their Deaf family member, more power to them!!!”
I have to be in agreement with you when I respect hearing people of deaf child who have right to choose.
I think, if I were a hearing parent of a deaf child, I would very likely be interested in the use of cued english in my child’s education, and would learn that, because of its direct relationship to English. But I would hope I’d also do enough research to realize that my child should also learn ASL and make the effort to learn it myself.
As a deaf person, if I had a deaf child, I would obviously start off with ASL, no question (although I’d probably be learning at the time, inasmuch as I’m only learning ASL now), but I would give some serious consideration to the use of cued english as an educational tool…
I am a Deaf person with two Deaf children. The quote of the “claim” of Deaf people reading at 2/3rd grade level annoys me for two reasons. One is that did you know that before the Milan Conference in Italy in 1880, most of the Deaf people were excellent English readers and writers, they even edited hearing (yes, hearing) newspapers. That is because they used two seperate languages (ASL and English), not mixing them up and confusing themselves. Secondly, hearing people’s average reading levels are just ONE grade above, hearing people are no better themselves.
Cued Speech is just a simple CLASSROOM tool to begin with, but people are bringing it home and to other places than classroom. (as I have seen some stuff interpreted in cued speech!)
Many of people who use cued speech end up having hard time lipreading people who doesn’t know cued speech because they are so dependent of the codes of the hands to help them understand the words that are being said. So that doesn’t help the goal of “mainstreaming in hearing world.”
Parents of deaf children, if you started to learn ASL at early age, you would be able to communicate with your deaf childen as they get older (my hearing parents did and I am able to have debates with them about politics, medicine, televisions events, etc - you name it!)
ASL is a language of its own. Do you see people telling people from Spanish speaking countries that they shouldn’t teach their children spanish - should only teach English. No, because Spanish is a language.
I don’t know spoken English, but I am fully capable of living in the hearing world - hearing society. ASL is my primary language and English is my secondary one.
Open your minds and see how beautiful ASL is, you won’t regret it.
Denise
Denise
You need to open your mind to option. cued English (n.) a complete, natural visual language. Cued English is rendered via manual means (by the hand) and non-manual means (by the mouth, face, etc.).
Cued English is not a language, period. It’s code system to work with any spoken language.
Tell me what is wrong with using ASL?
American Sign Language is a natural, visual, non-spoken language used by Deaf people in North America. ASL has its own distinct grammatical structure and unique vocabulary. The shape, movement, and location of the hands, facial expressions and body are used to communicate. ASL is not based on English.
you need to do research about CUE ENGLISH.
I don’t mean to sound negative at all, but it’s a fallacy that Cued Speech users are poor lipreaders because they “depend” on the code. The important thing to remember is that one of the rules of Cued Speech is that you have to move your lips as you cue. This creates a natural understanding of lipreading because you see what the shapes look like. When I’m cued to, I’m actually lipreading and the Cues are backup.
If you don’t know English, it makes it fairly difficult to function in society to the point of succeeding above and beyond your peers. How does one give a presentation in a board meeting with 10 people without spoken language? How does one order dinner without having to write everything down? That kind of stuff.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with Sign Language, nobody was ever saying “Don’t use Sign”, but it’s a communication tool that’s effective within the deaf culture and the vast majority of humanity does not know how to Sign. Please forgive me for saying this but It effectively isolates you from hearing society. Which is why it’s important to have access to as many tools as possible. Is it possible to grow up with Cued Speech AND ASL? I don’t know. Why don’t people use SEE anyway? Is there a conflict between ASL and SEE?
As for the role of a Parent….it is undeniably one of the most important roles. I’ve seen people say that Cued Speech is only a CLASSROOM tool. Well I mean, if the whole point is exposure to spoken language, then it’s the parents responsibility to Cue at home as well. That’s how people pick up language. From their environments. I don’t see any reason why kids can’t grow up with both Sign Language and Cued Speech. A parent can learn to Cue in a week and begin communicating with their children and exposing them to their own language immediately. They they’ll be able to communicate about politics, sports, movies, whatever…with English. Who knows, maybe those kids will go on to BE Politicians. You can’t be a Politician without the ability to be a good orator. (but who the hell would want to be a Politician? ha!)
I don’t think anyone is denying that there have successful deaf people in the past, but what I think all of us are forgetting is that for all the successes, there are hundreds of failures. People fall through the cracks. People who don’t succeed with one system often fall into a holding pattern of destitution because they’re either too old for the educaitonal system or have been declared a loss and relegated to manual labor. Those are the people I see at the airport handing out cheap trinkets hoping for a buck of charity. That tears me up inside, as I’m sure it tears up every other deaf person. It’s such a waste.
It’s our responsibility to make sure nobody falls through the cracks and everyone gets the best education possible. There are many many ways to do it, but from my own personal perspective, a method to make spoken english, french, spanish, german, hebrew, or gibberish visually accessible makes sense to me because it’s universally effective for instilling a high level of language in a deaf person.
Just a quick comment: SEE is not ASL. Signed Exact English is a form of signing that codes English exactly. It is not a language, but a code, just like cued english, (although far more cumbersome). To me, it would make far more sense to dump the signing codes, and use something like cued English plus ASL.
As a lipreader, I don’t know whether or not cued English kids are better/worse at their lipreading skills, but it does occur to me that it would be very easy to use the codes in greater proportion than in distinguishing finer aspects of some lip positions while someone’s speaking, but I’ll be the first to say that’s pure speculation on my part. We’d probably have to do something like both of us simultaneously lipread a third person and see how much of it each of us got and even then that’s not a statistical sample
One connection I’m not making is…how is cued English any more useful than ASL once you move outside of the classroom and family? There aren’t any greater numbers of hearing people using cued English than there are using ASL. Or is the argument just that cued English kids learn [written] English better? A deaf child who doesn’t speak well isn’t going to do any better under any other system in learning to speak…
Hearie here: I actually am seeing people saying, “Don’t use ASL.” EVen you say that you aren’t saying anything against it, and then say nothing btu negative things. It’s only used by Deaf people, it’s isolating, it leads to destitution. It feels very disingenuous for you to say that you aren’t slamming ASL, and then spend the entire next paragraph doing just that.
NO ONE can fail to learn ASL. That’s the simple fact of the matter, here. EVERY snigle living person can learn ASL successfully adn be a successful language user. You only ever run into this patchwork of “what works for A doesn’t work for B” when you start to overcomplicate the situation by granularizing to the point where you have a zillion “methods” and “techniques” to be used by every kid under the sun, and you end up peppering the kid with one or the other depending on whose pet project the parents get exposed to first.
No matter what you want to say, no matter how hard you try, there are ONLY two dogs in this pen, two fully realized natural languages: ASL and English. Period. Cued English and SEE are NOT languages; they are codes used to teach English. Period.
The end product should be native, fluent ASL and English. TO THAT END, those codes can be employed in English class. But the real, natural language, the only one that limits absolutely no one at all and gives complete and total communication ability to every single person who uses it, is ASL. What level or impairment, how well the kid’s ears can be brought up with HAs, whether the CI works … absolutely not a single bit of it matters if you use ASL and use the other tools as tools to teach English. Nothing else is required. The ultimate goal is fluency in ASL and English.
Two other things: this method is not universally good for instilling a high level of language in a deaf person. It does that only if you only define spoken language as language. Period.
Also, the statement that you can’t give a board presentation in ASL is also disingenuous. I’ve worked in areas of study that are extremely technical and esoteric and worked for several VERY high-pressure high-tech corporations. I’m working for one now. The spoken English skills of some of the most hotly pursued engineers are abysmal. It’s practically expected that you’re going to hear an extremely thick, occasionally impenetrable Cantonese, Punjabi, or Japanese accent in well over half of the attendees to any such meeting. For any person who says, “How can you give a presentation to a board of Directors without fluent English skills?” I can say back, “Um, how many of these types of meetings or professional conferences have you been to?” I strongly suspect that the answer is going ot be zero in the vast, vast majority of cases.
Again, it seems to me that all of this, “Oh I dnio’t mean anything against ASL, I think it’s just peachy” is incredibly disngenuous. It’s really starting to remind me of those Boy Scout parents who say that gay men are pedophiles and should be run out of the country, but “Oh, I’m not discriminating, I’d never do that.” Or one woman I knew back in Phila who loudly proclaimed she wasn’t racist and then following it up with absolutely appalling stuff. I’m just learning about a lot of this stuff, but I’m really starting to understand why ASL signers are so disinclined to like cued English and peopel who promote it; its proponents seem to spend a lot of time talking about how they think ASL is just peachy but condemns your child to underclass status, is limiting, ingterferes with English acquisition, resets your refrigerator so your ice cream melts, causes acne, and has been positively correlated with global warming.
Fluency in ASL and English is what should be pursued. ASL is the ONLY language that a deaf kid can use without limitations of any kind. Cueing can be useful to help the kid pick up English as a second language and become fluent and literate. But if a child exits school speaking nothing but cued English … that’s just not good enough.
Me again — *rolls own eyes*
I think there’s also a few poorly defined terms floating around here regarding what cueing does and what it can accomplish. Cueing teaches the kid to process spoken English. That is not the same as teaching English. Knowing a language and knowing how to speak it easily are two very different things; many (and I mean MANY) of the world’s best-regarded English-language authros speak English abysmally. Cueing teaches spoken English, not English. And it will not teach a deaf child to talk if his or her ears aren’t up to the point (corrected or not) where they can manage it. Watch that cueing video once again — and listen to the children speaking. One of the little boys spoke not at all. Another spoke haltingly and still had to be captioned (not all speakers were captioned!). And the very young woman they talked to, her speech was really no better than a zillion cueless deaf people I’ve known.
If you have a magic vision in your head that teaching a child cued English will enable them to give that speech in front of the board of directors fluently, you have some illusions you need to be disabused of. That little Chinese boy? The other little boy who cued silently? Cueing could help them understand others who cued, but under no circumstances whatsoever would it solve the “speech in front of the board” problem. If those children cannot hear themselves, they cannot learn to speak. Cue will not change that. And since most deaf people do not use cueing (most people period do not use cueing), you will wind up with a child who still cannot talk fluently but who also cannot communicate fluently with any significant group of people. If the child can hear well enough to speak as well as that young deaf woman they showed obviously can, then cueing will help but will ultimately not be needed.
The single, irrefutable advantage of cueing lies in the fact that it’s easier for the parents to learn. That is it when it all comes down to it. It has no particular advantage as a primary communication tool, however minorly useful it would be in ESL classes. Far too few people speak it for it to be of any use whatsoever in the “speech to the board” situation. It does not magically teach a child how to move their tongue such that they can make a clear, easily distinguished “s” and “sh.” It’s ONLY advantage is to the parents. That’s it.
You can’t deny the fact that Cued Language does the following brilliantly: It perfectly and clearly displays the exact formulation of any spoken language. It doesn’t have to be english. It visually represents spoken language so a child learns whatever language their family and community speaks, idiosyncrasies and all. It clearly and exactly represents the building blocks that compose spoken language. If a parent speaks english terribly, but spanish perfectly, their child, if cued to, will have terrible english skills, but perfect spanish skills.
Cued Language IS NOT A TOOL TO IMPROVE SPEECH, nor has it ever claimed to be so. Cued Language is a tool to expose a child to any spoken language in full. Whether or not that child gains good speech is up to them and their support systems.
The point of Cued Language, which seems to be perpetually missed, is that it fully and perfectly represents language visually. Thereby making the language acquisition process far easier. It’s easier to teach a child to read English if they know English already. That is undeniable.
That people have found Cued Language/Speech proponents to be overbearing and derogatory towards ASL is unfortunate. For that, I apologize. Y’all should work for FOX news.
Jcortese, did you say you are hearing or deaf?
Jcortese
Cued speech
There is no open caption if you are hearing.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/ehdi/CDROM/building/videos_cued_speech_Mac.html
A friend of mine told me about this blog entry and strongly suggested I check it out. I have to admit that I was expecting total antagonism, but I’m pleasantly surprised.
I wanted to remark about the fluency/”rehearsed” comment of the cuers in the video. The fact is, we were all asked questions on videotape (interview-style), so the hesitancy you see in my responses is a result of my thinking about how to phrase what I wanted to say, not how to cue it. I’m a native cuer — have been cueing since I was 3-1/2 years old. I’m also a certified instructor of Cued Speech.
With regard to the name “Cued Speech,” it *is* an unfortunate misnomer. However, we need to bear in mind that Dr. Cornett developed it in the 1960s, when phonemes and speech were thought to be one and the same. We now know that speech is not a requirement to produce phonemic information (thanks in part to cueing). Also, remember that around the same time, ASL was just beginning to be academically recognized as a bona fide language by linguists.
As far as the whole reading level controversy, I think it merits noting that the US Dept of Education (specifically the Institute of Education Sciences) has recently changed from a grade-level analysis of literacy skills to one that focuses on functional skills. For example, minimal competency (basic literacy) might include being able to read labels on food items, but not how to follow instructions for filling out tax return forms.
There are many kinds of literacy, and I think the goal for many, if not all, of us should be to have English-language skills that are as “high” as possible. If I had a deaf child, I would do my best to ensure s/he could perform to the best of her/his potential. That’s what it really comes down to — reaching language potential by maximizing resources, abilities and opportunities for that person.
I am also a fluent signer and advocate for bilingualism in ASL and cued English with deaf children. It would be great if all hearing parents could become perfect models of ASL overnight, but we all know that won’t happen.
Thus, in MY opinion, the best way to prevent a long language delay is to provide children with immediate access to the home language — here in the U.S., that’s usually English. I see no reason why parents can’t learn how to cue (English, Spanish, etc.) and start providing clear, unambiguous language input to their child(ren), while learning ASL from native users who can also model that language to the deaf child. English and ASL should be separate, but too often, that doesn’t happen. Parents who learn how to sign are not appropriate early-language models, and the kids may struggle with having an incomplete foundation in either English or ASL. Children who use SEE or another sign system have more to tend with — trying to “decode” the parts of English words (phonemes) from a singular sign that has no phonemic representation. To clarify:
The sign for cat — we all know it. It’s either a closed “G” or an “F” handshape (depending on where you live or learned how to sign) and a movement from the cheek outward. The sign itself does not represent the C-A-T that is in English print, nor does it represent the /K, A, T/ phonemes of spoken English.
However, I can cue /k, a, t/ and the person to whom I’m cueing will have the mental understanding of /k, a, t/, even if s/he can’t speak it or write it (2-year-olds can’t write yet!) and understand that /kat/ means CAT — a small, furry animal that makes weird raspy noises when it’s happy (purring).
I also agree that there is a lot of work that needs to be done in educating people about language acquisition and processing, about the role of speech (esp. with regard to voicing while cueing), etc. Many parents of deaf cuers did put their children in speech therapy, so many cuers do speak with hearing peers/adults. But with other deaf cuers (and signers), voice is not always used. Voicing itself is NOT a required component of cueing — if someone voices, that is an individual choice.
As far as the comment about the speech and lipreading abilities of deaf cuers (and deaf people in general), please remember that no two individuals are alike. Within the cueing community exists great diversity — people who have no usable residual hearing, some who are profoundly deaf, some who are more functionally hard-of-hearing (auditorily), some who had intensive speech therapy, others who didn’t….I know that for my parents at least, they were more interested in my language abilities than my speech. I know my speech isn’t great. It’s because I can’t hear myself that well. I’m profoundly deaf.
Also, someone mentioned in a comment that I was young — and just to clarify that issue, I’m in my late 20s. I just happen to look really young for my age (I can’t wait until I’m 50 and people think I’m 35!)
I was also interviewed after a very, very long day of driving 3 hours and then teaching for 5 hours.
Regarding research — we know the research isn’t great. It’s hard to do a large-scale study and keep all the parameters and controls the same when you have deaf cuers (adults and children) scattered throughout the country. The best research studies are from Belgium and France (1990s to current). There is also a dearth of researchers in deaf education and linguistics willing to tackle this big job! I have a file with a list of all the research done to date (that I’m aware of — and I know I don’t have most of the unpublished theses or dissertations), and that file is about 5 pages long.
I hope my response will be beneficial.
Sincerely,
Hilary Franklin
P.S. As a disclaimer, I am now on the board of the National Cued Speech Association. This comment posted here reflects my personal views only and not those of anyone else affiliated with the NCSA.
I recently posted a video of my personal opinion on Cued Speech. It gives perspective from a deaf individual.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGaO-BqpWyU
In my perspective, I have to say Cued Speech gave me the exposure to language that was necessary for me to perform well in school. I never learned ASL except for the basic derogatory remarks and the ABC’s.
I was born deaf, so I couldn’t access the spoken language yet at age 2 I started responding expressively to my parents who had been cueing to me since I was 19 months old.
I was held back, yet my mom found out it was really her decision whether I should be held back or not. As a result, I only spent 2 months in Second grade. I was where I belonged, with peers my age.
At this point, I had already had access to the language, but at age 6 I received the cochlear implant and a combination of the both just allowed me to blossom.
I removed the Cued Speech transliterators from school my freshman year of high school, mainly because I was receiving information directly from the teacher but also because I was self-conscious about my deafness.
In the end, an example of the applications of Cued Speech is not found in a deaf child, but a hearing child. I recently met a mother of two kids, and whom also teaches music at a middle school. Her firstborn son was already 3 or 4 years old and did not speak. They didn’t know what was wrong. Then someone suggested using Cued Speech, and she cue/sang lullabies to him. It was then after the exposure to Cued Speech that he started speaking. I do not think of Cued Speech just as a method of deaf communication, but the KEY to spoken language.
Aaron
Hello-
All of the research I quoted in my film is available. To the people wondering why there isn’t more research, it is difficult to get large samples in deaf education because we don’t have large numbers. Case studies are generally accepted because that’s what we have to work with. Several large-scale studies are available in Spanish (since translated to English), in French (also available in English), and a doctoral dissertation all demonstrating the same thing. Deaf cuers surpassed the majority of deaf signers on English language knowledge, receptive and expressive English, rhyming, phonemic awareness, and internal speech/voice. The dissertation had 90 participants. The other articles also had large samples.
If you go to PsychInfo you can find the Spanish and French studies. You can buy the dissertation (Wandel) from dissertation abstracts or get the summary from the National Cued Speech Association.
Research also demonstrates that cuers and hearing individuals are more successful lipreaders than deaf signers. This is due to having a better internal understanding of the English language. You can get the citation from the NCSA website and order the article off of PsychInfo or another journal site.