I realize that I'm entering this discussion a few months late, but I was forwarded this thread by a friend of mine. There are many statements being made here that are misinformed and highly biased.
A few facts:
Cued Speech is, in fact, NOT a language and nobody informed has claimed that it is.
Cued Speech visually conveys the existing languages of the land or of those who choose to use it. It is not referred to as The Cued Language or The Cued Speech.
Cued Speech is the name of the overall system itself. Cued Language is the product of Cued Speech. "Cued Language" is an identical figure of speech as the terms "Spoken Language", "Written Language", "Signed Language", or even "Captioned Language".
Another way to look at it is that speech is what we use to create spoken language. Writing is what we do to create written language. We cue to create cued language, therefore Cued Speech is the system we use to convey cued language...
The goal of Cued Speech is to provide deaf people with an accurate visual model of any Language that utilizes consonant-vowel phonemic pairings. English, Spanish, French, German, and most global languages fall under this category.
Cued Speech proponents do NOT intend to attempt to replace ASL.
Cued Speech, despite the inclusion of Speech in the name, is NOT intended to teach deaf people to speak or mold them into a hearing person's idea of "curing" deaf people. There is a long-running question of Cued Speech vs. Cued Language. The fact of the matter is, the people who have been working and living with Cued Speech have become accustomed to calling it Cued Speech.
Do adult deaf people who do not have an accurate model of English have a difficult time learning how to cue without getting frustrated? Yes, completely understandably so. But over time, if they are interested in doing so, they can learn the correct English pronunciations, models, and idiosyncracies.
Those who describe Cued Speech as "a visual form of expressing sounds" are describing it from the perspective of Spoken Language. The most common use of English is by sounding it out. However, actual sound is not necessary in order to have or convey an accurate understanding of the English model (or Spanish, French, or most other languages) and Cued Speech allows the visual exposure to those models.
I am deaf and I grew up with only Cued Speech. I had speech therapy growing up and currently use spoken language as my primary form of communication. Is my speech perfect? No, but it is very understandable and that's my goal. Are my English skills sufficient? You tell me. Should deaf people have the tools to access to all languages? I believe so, but I won't make the choice for you. Should everyone make their own choices? Absolutely.
I am happy to answer any questions anyone may have and please don't hesitate to ask or speak your minds.