An About.com Deafness forum member who is a cued speech transliterator (like an interpreter) requested cued speech success stories. Several members responded. What follows are the edited responses:
"Cued Speech has made my life more successful. I have used cued speech all my life. I started when I was 3 years old, my mother made sure that my whole family learn how to cue. I was not left out with idioms, slang, silly sounds...Because of cued speech, I was able to pick up on sarcasm/jokes and do well in school. I was mainstreamed in public school since kindergarten. It also helped with my lip reading skills and speech therapy."
—CUELADY
"I am a CS user as well. I just recently learned CS 1 1/2 years ago. I used CS in the classroom and it has been great. I love it and advocate its use for any deaf child beginning the journey to language. Its simple, easy to learn and its visual. I do find ASL is better for me in social situations and CS better in the academic setting."
—PAQARE
"I have been signing all my life. While I was in college, I learned about cued speech. A college student/cued speech transliterator taught me how to cue within 3 days. Since I was studying deaf education, I felt it was my responsibility to know all the methods to communicate with the deaf. After several weeks of practicing using cued speech, I was able to slowly become fluent. I even used a cued speech transliterator for some of my college classes.
As a teacher of the deaf, I have been signing with my students. I find sign language to be beautiful and exciting. Cued speech is a little boring for me because its the same 8 shapes and positions. I would definitely use it for learning words without signs and foreign languages. Cued speech does have lots of pros as well as cons."
—PUDDYCAT701
"I'm a cuer from the age of 2, and I don't find it boring because it's just 8 shapes and 4 positions - Rather, I love it because it is so simple, and yet it can be so graceful and unobstructive when done properly. If you know how a word looks, you get some idea of how it might sound from the letters in it. Many cuers feel isolated, because they don't know other people who cue.
I've never had any residual hearing in my life, nor have I any idea of how words sound, other than what I've learned. And yet, with cued speech, I get some idea of how sounds sound. I find it just as beautiful and exciting as sign language, more so in some ways, because it's bringing the wonderful world of language within your grasp. It's a way to understand Shakespeare and Chaucer and Wordsworth and Jane Austen and to understand how people talk in dialect - for example, a broad Scottish accent can be cued! Whilst I see how sign language is exciting and fascinating, I cannot really warm to it because I don't really feel able to relate to the way it rearranges grammar, language, and drops or "translates" words that to me are so fundamentally important to language. It is a language of its own, whilst cued speech is spoken language made visible. So, yes, I sign, but I prefer cued speech because of my love of the English language."
—BLOTTOSTREET
"I learned cued speech at a young age. I was born deaf. It helps deaf kids learn language. I read on grade level. Without cued speech I would probably be on third grade reading level at best. Cued speech helps me to be able to communicate with hearing people because I read lips. But I miss information when I read lips. Cued speech is good choice for communication with a deaf person and also good for their education. I learned sign language for social reasons. For academic reasons I would choose cued speech. But before cued speech I didn't know any language at all. But when I learned cued speech I started learning language. I learned cued speech when I was two years old, but the problem was that my mom didn't cue all the words so I missed important information until I was nine years old. I was struggling in the mainstream in the third grade and a cued speech interpreter saw that I was struggling and took me out of the mainstream classroom, and put me into a self-contained classroom. Then in the sixth grade I was in the mainstream classrooms again. I have been in the mainstream program since then."
—CUEDSPEECH20
"Both my children & I are deaf. I learned cued speech after my first child has his cochlear implant. We loved going to cue camps. I continued using it after my second child received her implant. Now they are doing well & talking, Cued speech eventually faded away. I still use it like when they take a bath or when we're in the pool. I recommend everybody to learn everything they can...cued Speech, sign language, everything. You just never know who you meet."
—4MY2KIDZ
"Have you been paying attention to the writing skills of those who are D/deaf and know cued speech? I am not deaf, but my big brother is. We all learned cued speech at camps. All the deaf people that used cued speech in school I've ever met have a better grasp of the English language than those I've met who grew up on ASL.
I too love ASL as it is a beautiful language, but if a deaf person wants to learn to speak English, I say learn cued speech as well. It's like a tool added to speaking. Just as the voice is added to lip movements to make it audible, the hand is added to make it visual. When I use cued speech with my brother, I can cue and speak at the same time, so no one is left out. Also, I can directly interpret the conversation without distracting others, because I can turn on my voice when I want to speak and turn it off when I am only translating."
- About.com Visitor
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