What is Cued Speech?
"Who Uses Cued Speech" is a fourteen minute video from the National Cued Speech Association.   Hearing and Deaf parents discuss how and why they chose to communicate using Cued American English with their child(ren).

Cued Speech is a visual communication system which, in English, uses eight handshapes in four different positions around the face in combination with the natural mouth movements of speech to make all of the sounds (phonemes) of spoken language look different.  Phonemes are the smallest unit of English, or the building blocks, that distinguish one word from another.  One cue, therefore, is a combination of a handshape, position, and mouth movement.  This combination  creates clear and unambiguous spoken language access for deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals.  Using the system of Cued Speech to convey a traditionally spoken language provides access to the following additional critical components of that language:  phonemic awareness, syntax (sentence word order), semantics (vocabulary, word meanings), morphology (word endings) and idioms.

Cued Speech was developed by Dr. Orin Cornett in 1966 while working at Gallaudet University. He developed Cued Speech with the express purpose of providing a way for children who are deaf or hard of hearing to become good readers.  The visual representation of a spoken language using Cued Speech produces phonemic awareness.   Phonemic awareness does not have to be acoustic, it can be visual, via Cued Speech.  Phonemic awareness is a prerequisite skill to being a successful reader and is the best predictor of how well children will learn to read during their first two years in school. Cued Speech allows deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals to "internalize" the language they see.

Cued Speech has been adapted to over 55 different languages, which allows parents to communicate with their children in their native, traditionally spoken language.  Parents are then able to provide their child with natural and complete language exposure and access.  Since Cued Speech uses the natural mouth movements of speech, speech reading skills are also developed.

Speech clinicians use Cued Speech to show what sound they would like produced and also what sound was actually produced. Research indicates that using Cued Speech to cue a traditionally spoken language is beneficial for the development of language, reading, speech reading and auditory skills. 

To see video clips of Cued Speech, a Cued Speech chart or simply to explore other resources, please visit our links page.