Cued Speech
Cued Speech - A Simple System of Cues
Did you know that there is a unique national charity based in Dartmouth?
The Cued Speech Association is the only organisation which provides information about, and training in, Cued Speech, a simple system of cues which totally clarify lipreading for deaf children and adults. The charity provides low-cost or free training for parents who can’t afford the cost of learning but they are also a business which brings income into the town by selling training to professionals such as teachers and speech and language therapists.
Why is Cued Speech needed?
Although some deaf children can learn English just by using hearing aids or a cochlear implant many others have problems communicating with hearing people and accessing education. Using sign language doesn’t provide a solution; it is very different from English and so does not give access to spoken or written English. Without Cued Speech the average reading age of a deaf school leaver is only nine – despite the extra support they get at school. An additional problem for hearing parents is that sign language takes years to learn. Lip-reading is of limited help too since, at best, only about 35% of English can be accurately lipread – the rest is guesswork.
Cued Speech solves these problems.
To use the system you talk as normal, and in addition you use eight handshapes in four positions near the mouth! It only takes about 20 hours to learn. The hand shapes and positions together totally clarify lip-reading – so the deaf baby or child can now see all the words of English clearly. They can learn to think in English and use this to learn to read. They can also communicate with their hearing family and use their understanding of English to improve their speech. Parents gain too; because it’s so quick to learn, they can communicate with their deaf baby without delay. International research and case studies show that children brought up with Cued Speech can achieve the same literacy levels, academic achievement and integration into the family and society as hearing children. Cued Speech is life-changing and economical.
The charity’s Executive Director, Anne Worsfold, was introduced to Cued Speech over 20 years ago: ‘My son was born deaf and Cued Speech enabled me to communicate with him easily and immediately. Later I used it with his brother who was also born deaf. Both boys understood and used the English language fully, went to local schools (with Cued Speech support) and subsequently went on to university.’
The charity moved to Dartmouth over ten years ago after Anne took over – initially she ran it part-time from a spare room in her house. At that time no training courses were being offered and there was only one small leaflet to tell people about the system. Today there is a range of information materials including a booklet, a video, and a number of specific information sheets – all of which are also accessible from their comprehensive website. From the office – in a windy field at Jawbones - training courses are now arranged as far away as Scotland. More recently the charity launched an e-learning website (created with the help of a volunteer) and have made available mini-videos of people talking about how Cued Speech has helped them. Each year they organise a popular Summer School in Exeter; this year they had students not only from the UK but also from Poland, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Over the years the charity has been delighted to have had help from within the town; volunteers have given free legal advice, business advice, stuffed envelopes, and raised money. Unfortunately money is always needed to provide information and to subsidise training for those who can’t afford it. Most recently the ‘Nauti Buoys’ sang sea shanties in the Royal Castle Hotel in aid of the charity and John Burton-Race and his staff gave their up their free time to host a meal for 60 people in the New Angel. John said that the Cued Speech Association is a charity which is very close to his heart because he is partly deaf, which he said was part of the reason why he shouts a lot!
Anne now has four staff working in the Jawbones office and an additional employee contracted out to the Exeter Royal Academy for Deaf Education. Anne and her colleagues are proud of the deaf children who have been helped by Cued Speech – like 3-year old Zed who has a reading age of a 7-year old (go to their website, www.cuedspeech.co.uk to see a video of parents, including Zed’s father, chatting about cueing successes). However, despite the big increase in the number of people using Cued Speech over the last ten years, it is not widely used in the UK. The charity has decided therefore that they need to develop their work in two ways; they are going to make their training more accessible by linking it more specifically with their e-learning and they are going to actively campaign to increase Cued Speech use so that many more deaf children can benefit from it.
Would you like to know more about Cued Speech and the work of the Association? Their website is crammed with information and links to videos: www.cuedspeech.co.uk
First Published February 2010 By The Dart