Dr Guita Movallali

How does Cued Speech help speech? Speech is much more complex than the ability to make speech sounds. It is necessary to know how sounds combine to make words and phrases and also to understand the grammatical structure of a sentence. The consistent use of Cued Speech will allow a deaf child to acquire an understanding of spoken language – sound by sound.

This understanding, which includes knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, can be used as a base for speech. Also, although Cued Speech does not teach a childhow to say speech sounds, it is very useful in speech correction and speech therapy. It can also be used with hearing children with speech and language difficulties.

What about residual hearing? Most deaf people have some hearing which can be enhanced by hearing aids. All children should have the opportunity to reach their full listening potential and therefore it is recommended that children brought up with Cued Speech have every means available to make best use of their hearing.

Unfortunately this is often not enough to allow a deaf child to hear all the sounds of speech. Some children hear very little, even with aids. Others may hear most speech sounds in perfect listening conditions but very little in noisy situations or when they are not close to the speaker. This will cause problems with communication and language development.

With Cued Speech deaf children can see every phoneme of speech so resolving the problems of communication and language development. Furthermore researchers have found that children who were supported by Cued Speech made betteruse of their residual hearing. (BL Charlier & D Paulissen, 1986).

Cued Speech and Cochlear Implants? All children respond differently to their implants with some achieving greater benefits than others. What are the problems? Prior to an implant it is very hard for your baby or child to communicate and to learn language. Using sign may solve the communication problem – but you have to learn it first and it is a very different language from the one your child will later hear through the implant. After the implant the problems of distance and background noise remain…

Cued Speech helps cochlear implanted children in several ways. Since it only takes about 20 hours to learn to cue the twin problems of early communication and language development can be immediately solved. In addition Cued Speech allows deaf children (even those with no hearing) to understand the same sound-based language that they can access later through their implant.

Also, if your child thrives with their implant and you no longer need Cued Speech for everyday use, it will still be useful to overcome problems of background noise and distance – and, of course when the processor cannot be worn.

What’s the difference between British Sign Language (BSL) and Cued Speech? Cued Speech totally clarifies the lip patterns of normal speech by using eight hand shapes in four positions together with the lip patterns of normal speech. In this way every sound uttered looks clearly different.

It allows hearing parents to use their own language in a visual form and in its entirety - and therefore it gives deaf children full access to the English language from a very early age. This has huge advantages: children see a complete, grammatically correct language and can use it to communicate. Their full understanding can then be used to learn to read and write, and to help with speech and lip reading.

British Sign Language (BSL) is a totally different language from English or other spoken languages, with a very different structure and grammar. It is therefore not an easy or direct route to literacy. Also, because Cued Speech is just a different way for people to express their own spoken language, it can be learnt in just a few hours, whereas it takes years of study to be fully fluent in BSL.

give deaf children the opportunity to be part of the communities : Each language (English and BSL) should be learnt through every-day, face-to-face communication and play with a minimum amount of teaching. Each language should be learnt from people who are good models of it and the culture associated with it. BSL should be learned primarily from deaf people and English (at least in its spoken form) from hearing people.

Each language should be learnt by receiving it in a clear form. This is not a problem for BSL. If English is to be learnt through natural, face-to-face communication it must be delivered through Cued Speech if aural/oral practices (learning language through the use of residual hearing alone) are not sufficient.

The acquisition of each language should begin as early as possible. The child should have an adequate knowledge of English to serve as a base for reading development by the age of about six years.

Cued Speech and Auditory Neuropathy/ Dys-synchrony (AN/AD)? It is now estimated that 10% of the deaf population may have AN/AD. It is widely recommended that Cued Speech is used with AN/AD babies and children for a number of reasons: one of which is that about 7% of the children with this diagnosis ultimately need NO intervention since they “get better” without any help. Therefore, one does not want to do harm with hearing aids or implants but can ensure language development, regardless of the outcome, by using Cued Speech.

How can I learn Cued Speech and how long will it take? It takes about 20 hours to learn the basics. Initially you cue slowly. It will take several months to be able to cue at the speed of normal speech. Do not worry that your cueing is initially slow – there is no evidence that this is unhelpful to young deaf children who are learning language and there are some indications that slow cueing can be beneficial in the early stages.

Parents who use Cued Speech consistently will steadily gain speed.

Cued Speech Association UK