Cued Speech

Also called Cueing, Cued English

Eight hand shapes in four positions near the mouth that make every sound of spoken English visible, so lip-reading stops being guesswork.

What it is

Cued Speech is a way of making spoken English fully visible. The speaker talks normally and, at the same time, makes a hand shape near the face for each consonant and puts the hand in a position for each vowel. Combined with the lip pattern, the cue tells the watcher exactly which sound was said, including the two thirds that lip-reading alone cannot see.

It was invented in 1966 by Orin Cornett, an American physicist who noticed that deaf students at Gallaudet University read poorly and reasoned that they had never had full access to the sounds of English. It is not a sign language and has no vocabulary of its own; it is a phonetic overlay on speech, and it works for any spoken language once the cues are adapted.

In the UK it is supported by the Cued Speech Association UK, which trains families and professionals. It has always been a minority approach next to BSL and next to the oral tradition, and it is best thought of as a tool for giving a deaf child English rather than a communication choice in itself.

Who it can help

Deaf children whose families want them to have full access to spoken English, and in particular to the sounds that reading and spelling are built on. A child who has been cued to from early on has seen every phoneme of English, and the reading results in cued children are the main argument for it.

It also helps children with cochlear implants in the gaps: before the implant is switched on, in noise, at bath time when the processor is off. Some speech and language therapists use it with hearing children who have a speech sound disorder, because it shows the child the sound they are missing.

It is not a replacement for BSL for a Deaf child who needs a first language now, and many families use both, cueing for English and signing for everything else. It does not help an adult who lost hearing late unless the people around them learn to cue, which is a real investment.

How it works

English has around 44 sounds. Cued Speech represents the consonants with eight hand shapes and the vowels with four positions of the hand near the face: at the side, at the throat, at the chin and at the corner of the mouth. A hand shape in a position is a consonant plus a vowel, one syllable, made at the same instant the mouth says it.

Sounds that look the same on the lips are given different hand shapes, and sounds that look different on the lips can share one. That is the whole trick: the hand only has to distinguish what the mouth cannot. Since the system is phonetic it shows accent and mispronunciation faithfully, and it can cue a nonsense word as easily as a real one, which is why it works for teaching reading.

Learning to cue takes a hearing adult a few days of training to reach basic fluency and a few months of practice to keep up with conversation.

Getting started

If your child is deaf and you are drawn to this, contact the Cued Speech Association UK this week; it runs courses for families, some free, and can put you in touch with other cueing families. Talk to your Teacher of the Deaf about how it would fit with the rest of the child's provision, and read what the National Deaf Children's Society says about the range of communication approaches so the choice is a considered one.

Begin by cueing the words you say most to the child, at the moment you say them, and build up. Consistency counts for more than speed: a child who is cued to all day by one parent gains more than one cued to perfectly for ten minutes.

Cued Speech and BSL are not either-or, and a family that does both is giving the child two full routes to language.

Where to get help

The Cued Speech Association UK is the authority and the training provider. The National Deaf Children's Society gives balanced guidance on communication choices for deaf children. Your Teacher of the Deaf and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists are the professional routes, and the NHS route to a therapist is referring to speech and language therapy.