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From:
Amy Ruberl Date: Fri Jun 23, 2000 8:23 pm Subject: clarification of Cued Speech | ||||||||||||||||
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writes: >As usual...the difference between using a system to inadequately >represent English is considered superior to actually using a language. Actually, Cued Speech does an awesome job of representing English. Cueing students in Maryland score at or above age level for language (both expressive and receptive) similar to their hearing peers in public school. This is unheard of for the majority of deaf children. The inventor of CS was looking for a way to improve the literacy levels of deaf students at Gallaudet. He achieved his goal. Cued Speech provides visual access to the phonemes of English (or the phonemes of the 50 or so consonant-vowel languages it has been adapted to) which are required for reading and writing. It allows hearing parents a way to convey the language and culture of the home to their deaf child without stopping them from signing. Most of the cueing students I know sign fluently and have amazing English literacy as well as literacy with sign and Deaf culture. To answer Val's question: Has Cued Speech blended at all with ASL? Most of the cueing students I know who sign will sign with each other socially and throw in an English word using cues when they don't know how to spell it or they want to demonstrate the particular accent or dialect of someone- for example to mimic someone who says "pahk the cah" rather then "park the car." They code switch easily between ASL and English. During a presentation where only Cued Speech Transliterators were available to facilitate communication between the deaf and hearing participants, I have saw a deaf cuer, watch one of the transliterators cueing and sign interpreted for the one or two deaf individuals who had come unexpectedly without requesting interpreting services. Great to watch! I spoke to a group of graduate students about Cued Speech the other night and was excited to be able to tell them about the spread of signwriting as well. No one in the room was familiar with either Cued Speech or signwriting. I always mention SW when a I talk about CS. I figure the more knowledge everyone has about what is available the more skills we can give our children. In case you are wondering, I am a teacher of deaf and hard of hearing students and the president of the Maryland Cued Speech Association. I have taught oral/aural, signing, and cueing students of all ages. The students with the best skills in any spoken language are the CS students (a senior I worked with was in all honors classes, taking Spanish 2 and French 5, getting straight As). The second best were the deaf of deaf students who obviously had fluent ASL skills but still struggled with English as a second language missing idiomatic expression, multiple meanings, and had poor syntax. Just wanted to let everyone know a little more about CS and give you another resource (me) for answering any questions you have about it. You can email me at this address or . Amy Ruberl Maryland Cued Speech Association President | ||||||||||||||||
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