When I read Jean Leinweber's
touching "I Can't Hear
You", I was reminded of a remarkable experience I had many
years ago, when I taught a beautiful little girl named Catherine.
She had become profoundly deaf following a bout of meningitis
when she was less than two. Her parents, after much careful thought
and research, decided to start using something called "Cued Speech"
to help their communication with Catherine.
I came into the picture
when Catherine was in accepted into the school where I taught
kindergarten. The school administrators sent all the teachers
who would come into contact with Catherine during the first two
or three years of her schooling, to a four-day workshop to learn
how to Cue. We were told that we could pick it up fairly easily,
although of course it would take daily practice for a while before
we became proficient.
Cued Speech is a system
of enhanced lip reading. Because many of the sounds of the English
language look alike on the lips, a phrase like "have a pet to
cover" could be interpreted as: "half a bed do go for." While
context can help comprehension, if one is busy figuring out which
sound one is seeing, one loses several of the following words.
With Cued Speech, the lip reader watches the speaker's mouth,
but also sees a series of hand signals that help to differentiate
sounds that look alike, like b/p or v/f. When the lips come together
to make a "b," for instance, the speaker's hand is held near the
mouth with four fingers extended, and the thumb folded in. If
the sound in question is a "p," the fingers are folded in with
the index finger pointed straight up.
Amazingly quickly,
the deaf observer learns to see what the hearing observer hears.
The system allows a child to learn the English language exactly
as it is spoken, with correct syntax and phonemes. Because of
this, a deaf child can easily pick up such subtleties as rhyme,
alliteration, puns, word play, and even foreign languages. (Catherine
quickly picked up some French, and later moved on to Spanish).
I was delighted to find that Cued Speech's phonemic approach fit
with our pre-reading program, IBM's "Writing to Read," although
I am sure it would work well with any phonetic reading program.
By the end of kindergarten, Catherine was reading at 1st grade,
eighth month level. She also wrote delightful little sentences
to accompany her drawings, and large signs to post on her block
buildings: "No Boyz Alaoud!" (her spelling has improved since
then; she is now in high school, and an honors scholar).
Cued Speech was developed
at Gaullaudet University
by Dr. Orin Cornett, back in the '60's. It has spread throughout
America and to many foreign countries, although it is still struggling
for recognition in the deaf community.
In the world of the
hearing impaired, there has long been a fierce battle between
the oralists (who believe in lip reading) and those who advocate
sign language (ASL, Signed English, or other systems). In the
last thirty years or so, Total Communication, a system that combines
aspects of both, has made some strides in bridging the gap between
the two camps. It is not my place to enter the fray, inasmuch
as I am neither an educator of the hearing impaired, nor (yet)
deaf myself - although the latter is creeping up on me.
I understand that the
signing community feels that there is a whole deaf culture that
is inaccessible to those of us who hear, and they protect it vigorously.
Although I do not sign, I have been told that learning to do so
is like learning a whole new language. The syntax is different:
for instance, a signing friend tells me that a sentence like:
"Yesterday I went to the store" is signed with (1) the sign for
"store;" (2) the sign for "me;" and (3) the sign for "ago," followed
by a number to indicate how many days, hours, etc.
I would like to learn
sign language just because I find it fascinating, but at my age,
I suspect I would find it pretty difficult.
When I read Jean's
article, it struck me that I really hadn't thought much about
Cued Speech except as a superb method of making English accessible
to small children learning how to talk, read and write, because
that's how Catherine's family had used it. But I did remember
that I had met several older, hearing-impaired people when we
went to the Cued Speech Center for our workshop. And the more
I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that Cued Speech
would be ideal for adults who experience late life hearing loss.
Since they have already
been using the language all their lives, they understand the structure
of sentences and the complications of homonyms. They are used
to thinking language in phonemic units. Best of all, the process
can be easily learned by their family members, so that the deaf
person can continue to participate in the give and take of family
life.
As I said, it takes
a bit of practice to become as fluent with the hands as with speech.
But even if you don't ever get up to speed, you can use an occasional
cue to straighten out misunderstood speech.
Every hearing impaired
adult interested in this system should first take a really good
lip reading class (usually available through Senior Services).
Without lip reading, Cued Speech is pretty meaningless. But for
those of us who face increasing loss of hearing, it offers hope
that we will not become isolated in our silent worlds.
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If you are interested
in learning more about Cued Speech, visit www.cuedspeech.com,
or go to www.google.com and type in the words "Cued Speech" (with
the quotation marks). There is probably a Cued Speech center near
you that will be happy to give you more information.
New
England Cued Speech Services
National
Cued Speech Association
