For many deaf people, the added visual cues of the Cued Speech model
help to make the English language complete

BRETT ZONGKER

Washington (August 8, 2006) — Advocates are heartened that a system of teaching deaf children English is beginning to take hold, despite fears among many in the deaf community that it diminishes their culture.

Advocates say a phonetically based technique called cued speech can improve literacy rates among deaf students even if not used primarily for speaking. They point out that the average 18-year-old deaf high school graduate reads on a third- or fourth-grade level.

The system is gaining popularity with new research, a grass-roots movement and new funding aimed at improving reading scores under the federal No Child Left Behind law. Advocates marked the fortieth anniversary of the system's creation at a conference held last month in Maryland, USA.

American Sign Language has its own vocabulary and grammar, different from English. But cued speech, a phonetically based technique, uses eight hand shapes to make lip reading easier.

For deaf people who may not be able to differentiate between the sounds of the words "bed" and "pet," for instance, the corresponding visual cues help make the English language complete.

However, the idea of cued speech is sensitive in the deaf community, where many consider American Sign Language the central part of deaf culture. Protests erupted this spring at Gallaudet, the nation's only liberal arts college for the deaf, over the incoming president, partly because she had not learned to communicate with sign language until later in life.

"Often in the deaf community, it is thought that cuing is used only for speech purposes," said Amy Crumrine of Germantown, Maryland, who is among the first generation of deaf adults who grew up using cued speech. "This is not the main purpose of cuing - it's for literacy."

Research shows that learning about word sounds and how they fit into language are critical elements of learning to read and write, said Gallaudet professor Carol LaSasso.

Crumrine organises cued speech clinics and family camps as a volunteer and planned the five-day conference in Towson. It honours Dr R Orin Cornett, who created cued speech in 1966 while serving as vice president of Gallaudet.

The idea for the new way to teach English came when Cornett, who died in 2002, found few students were reading on campus, said Cornett's son, Robert, an astronomer at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center. He wanted to provide the same elements of spoken and written English for deaf people.

But use of the communication system has faded at Gallaudet, and the clinics that taught Crumrine's parents and others about cuing are no longer regularly offered on campus.

"His feelings were very hurt by that," Cornett's son says. "This was the thing that he contributed most."

Many deaf people would prefer that deaf babies begin learning ASL from birth. But 95 to 97 percent of deaf children are born to hearing parents, who usually don't learn sign language quickly enough to be able to teach it to their children, LaSasso said.

"You just can't expect them to learn a new language, frankly," LaSasso said. "It's not reasonable."

Many parents can become fluent with cuing in about six months, LaSasso said.

Most cuers are concentrated on the East Coast, but the system is used in all 50 states and has been modified for 67 different languages, said Sarina Roffe, now president of the National Cued Speech Association.

Manually Coded English, which uses sign language to help translate English, has been more widely used over the last 40 years than cued speech, but LaSasso said it has failed to improve literacy rates. Translating the hundreds of thousands of words of English with about 6,000 signs leaves out many words.

"That means the kids are getting fragmented input," LaSasso said. "Compared to the signing of English, cuing more clearly and completely conveys English at the same level that speech does."

Her findings were published in an article with Gallaudet professor Melanie Metzger in the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education in 1998. Last spring it was selected for a 100-year commemorative work by Oxford University Press. AP

For more information on deaf learning and signing, see: National Cued Speech Association at http://www.cuedspeech.org/ or Gallaudet University at http://www.gallaudet.edu/ .