The following explains why I believe Cued Speech is the best approach for deaf children of hearing parents:
I have recently been forwarded several messages concerning ASL and Cued Speech which have been floating around the DEAF-L list. I am a faculty member at Gallaudet and a firm believer in the need for all deaf children to be exposed to and learn ASL. On the other hand, as a mother of a deaf child, I am convinced, not by opinions and rhetoric, but by firm research, tha Cued Speech is the best way for my son to learn fluent English.
This was not an easy decision or one made lightly. I knew nothing of Cued Speech when my son was diagnosed. I was already a signer, and after almost a year of cuing, it is still easier for me to sign than cue quickly. I learned to cue and am concentrating on cuing in the home with Thomas because the research is clear: "Cue Kids" read at or above age level if they had that potential. Overall the average reading level of deaf adults is still at the fourth or fifth grade level.
As a scientist, I am also convinced by the theoretical aspects of Cued Speech as a means of accessing English. To be able to read with the ease of a typical hearing child, a deaf child should have two ways to attack words. One is to "look up" the word in the list of all the words he or she has learned. This is called lexical access. This is how a deaf child who is taught English by the "whole word" method approaches words. He or she must learn each word in its written form.
The second means of approaching a word is called phonological access. This approach requires that the child have some means of coding words based on how they sound. Cued Speech allows this type of access as each sound of a word is represented by either the cues or mouth shape. It has been clearly documented that a skilled cuer can clearly understand the exact message that is cued to him or her. In other words, Cued Speech makes spoken English fully accessible to a deaf child. This means that in the classroom, the child gets the exact same message that his/her hearing peers receive. This also means that a child can "pick up" words that are not directly taught to him/her, as she/he may see them being used in communication between other individuals. She/he may also "sound out" written words and match them to these words which have thus been passively absorbed.
The third reason that I think Cued Speech is the ideal mode for a hearing family to use with a deaf child is access to an accurate model of a language. Most parents of deaf children are not native signers. Many have never met a deaf person prior to learning that their own child is deaf. It is important for any child to have an accurate model of an accessible language at the earliest possible age. By the time an average deaf child is diagnosed in this country, she/he is already about 2 years old, and a significant portion of the critical period during which language is most readily learned has passed.
It is impossible to learn a new language fluently overnight. This being the case, the message to parents of deaf children who are told that the only way they can provide their child with language is to immediately learn a completely new language with its own grammar and syntax, and which even uses a different modality than their native language, is clearly that regardless of what they do, they will be inadequate.
The basics of Cued Speech can be learned in a week or less. After that initial training period, the parents can say anything they want to to their child (although they will be quite slow for aome time). They can communicate whith their child in their native language and provide an appropriate and correct model of that language. People who state that cuing "cannot get close enough to bring across full comprehension to be really useful" have simply not researched this means of communication.
This method was not developed as "a tool which might help facilitate lipreading and speech therapy". It was develoloped as a means of making spoken English fully accessible to a deaf child, a task at which it is succcessful. It was also not developed, nor is it intended, as a replacement for ASL. Those who know about Cued Speech know that the developer and the driving forces in Cued Speech are very much in favor of deaf children being brought up bilingual. This is certainly my goal for my son. He attends daycare with deaf providers and with both deaf and hearing children who can sign. He is developing a good identity of himself as a deaf person as well as simply a person. I want my child to have APPROPRIATE AND ACCURATE models of ASL, not my PSE or my husbands broken signs. Those who can provide the child with the best model of each accessible language should do so. This will provide the child with the greatest opportunity for developing both fluent ASL and fluent English.
(Contributed by Donna A. Morere at 21 Feb 1995.)
