How Does Cued Speech Work?
Cued Speech totally clarifies invisible or ambiguous lipshapes with cues - eight handshapes in four positions near the mouth together with the lipshapes of normal speech.
The combination of the handshape, the hand position and the lipshape makes every sound of spoken language clear.
Where lip patterns are quite different one from another - as in the sounds t, m and f - they can share the same handshape. When lipshapes are invisible or ambiguous - as in b, p, m - they are clarified by different handshapes or positions.
All sounds therefore look different either on the hand or on the lips.
Click here to download the A4 Cued Speech Chart.
Some examples
Emily’s lipshape could be m, p or b.
The handshape tells us that it is b.
The hand position tells us that the following vowel will be either e (in egg) o (in on) or ue (in blue), all of which have different lipshapes.
Mark’s lipshape could be sh, ch, j or zh (as in treasure).
The handshape tells us that it is sh.
The hand position shows us that the following vowel will be either e (in egg) o (in on) or ue (in blue).
Tom’s lipshape could be the vowel sounds u (in up) a (in apple) or ah (in farm).
The hand position shows that it is ah.
The handshape shows that the preceding consonant was either sh, l or w, all of which have different lipshapes.
Vowel sounds are shown by position. Consonant sounds are shown by handshape.Pairs of consonant/vowel sounds are cued together.The consonant handshape is cued in the position of the vowel that follows it. So for ‘bee’ the b handshape is cued in the ee position. For ‘car’ the c handshape is cued in the ah position. Long words are built up in the same way.