Cued Speech and Literacy

 

Without Cued Speech deaf children can struggle to understand English. This is not surprising; even with modern hearing aids or cochlear implants many deaf children cannot hear all the sounds of speech and it is only possible to lipread about 30% of what is said.  With an incomplete understanding of the English language it is hard to speak, to lipread, or to read and write.

However a wide body of international research and case studies tell us that deaf children brought up with Cued Speech can learn to read using the same phonetic techniques as hearing children and achieve the same level of literacy as hearing children.  Click here to see a summary of international research supporting the use of Cued Speech.

How can this be?

Cued Speech clarifies lip reading by using eight hand-shapes in four different positions near the mouth.  The combination of the hand shape, the hand position and the lip shape makes every sound of spoken language clear, so that 96 per cent of spoken language can be lip-read accurately.  In Cued Speech, each of the 44 sounds (phonemes) of English has a visual representation.  Through Cued Speech deaf children can fully understand the English language and they can use this understanding to learn to read, in the same way as hearing children.  Deaf children with access to Cued Speech can use synthetic phonic techniques which research shows are so effective and which are promoted by the government.  Click here to read an article about Literacy, synthetic phonics and Cued Speech.

Because Cued Speech makes every sound-based unit of speech (phoneme) clear and visible deaf children can:
• learn the whole of the English language through the cued words
• understand that English is made up of phonemes – both as part of the whole language and word-by-word
• learn, just as hearing children do, to make the association between the phoneme that they see on the lips (but may not be able to hear) and the phonemes represented in written language. 

Cued Speech makes it possible for deaf children be taught to read by identifying the individual ‘sounds’ within the words EVEN if they cannot hear those sounds. 

Different groups of deaf children:

Deaf children can benefit from the use of Cued Speech with Synthetic Phonics but different groups may learn differently depending upon their previous access to Cued Speech and to English. 

Deaf children who have had consistent and early exposure to Cued Speech are in the most advantageous position, they will ‘pick up’ and understand the whole of the English language through Cued Speech.  They can understand English stories just as hearing children can; by watching the cues.  Click here to see Cate cueing Goldilocks for small children – she is using two hands to bring the story to life but in normal conversation only one hand is used to cue.  Deaf children who can understand the whole of English phoneme-by-phoneme through Cued Speech bring to literacy learning the same phonetic knowledge as hearing children.  With input from a cueing professional, they can learn to read alongside hearing children. 

The second group of children - those who do not have access to Cued Speech before school but have some understanding of English - can also make rapid progress with the combination of synthetic phonics and Cued Speech.  Case studies demonstrate that for these children Cued Speech used with Synthetic Phonics can quickly disambiguate both spoken and written language and give full access to the phonics teaching in the classroom.

Also, older deaf children who have little or no understanding of English can be taught the 44 ‘sounds’ of English and their spelling choices directly through Cued Speech, and can both simultaneously and subsequently - learn written and spoken English.  Pioneering work at the Exeter Royal Academy for Deaf Education (ERADE) has introduced Cued Speech to  sign-using secondary-age pupils using adapted Synthetic Phonics materials.  These students had little prior knowledge or understanding of English, either written or spoken and found direct access to English and in particular access to phonics very hard.  But after a maximum of 100 hours Cued English lessons students understanding of phonics increased by an average of over two years.  A teacher wrote: ‘The use of Cued Speech simultaneously with Synthetic Phonics is giving these pupils a real understanding of how spoken languages work and of the relationship between spoken and written English.’ 

Children with early and consistent exposure to Cued Speech (who bring to literacy an understanding of English) and those who come to literacy through Cued Speech can use synthetic phonics methods.  There is no evidence that the use or not of residual hearing makes any difference to their understanding of phonetics. 

Synthetic Phonics, THRASS and Cued Speech

The THRASS (Teaching Handwriting Reading And Spelling Skills) synthetic phonics programme, pioneered by British Educational Psychologist Alan Davies consists of extensive picture-based training for schools and parents with access to a wide range of resources and support materials.  THRASS also run Professional Development Courses. 

More about THRASS and Cued Speech

THRASS and Cued Speech

Because both Cued Speech and THRASS are based on the 44 sounds of the English language they work perfectly together. 

At ERADE teachers using adapted THRASS printed materials found that the students' understanding of phonics increased dramatically.

The THRASS ‘Phoneme Machine’

Deaf children’s access to literacy resources has been given a huge boost with the development by THRASS, as part of THRASS’ Corporate Social Responsibility Programme, of a new version of their FREE software, the THRASS ‘Phoneme Machine’. 

The FREE Phoneme Machine software:
• comes in three sections, the interactive Calendar, the Word Grid and the Phoneme Grid all of which have a Cued Speech version
• is suitable for learners of all ages and abilities
• is an excellent resource for teachers, assistants and parents
• has been found to be particularly helpful for use with children starting to read, children finding reading difficult and those for whom English is not their first language.
• uses human lips to pronounce the sounds (phonemes) in hundreds of frequently used English words
• in the Cued Speech option (which can be turned on and off) the shapes, positions and movements of the hands are displayed alongside the moving human lips, with the cueing for each of the 500 basewords of English demonstrated in a video box. 

Phoneme Machine Version 6.0 can be downloaded free-of-charge from the THRASS UK website by teachers and parents.  www.THRASS.co.uk

For a short promotional video of the Phoneme Machine Version 6.0 with the Cued Speech option and other key THRASS interactive resources, visit www.thrass.co.uk/bettshow09.htm

The Phoneme Machine is also being distributed to 800,000 teachers in the UK on a memory stick, as part of the new Memory 4 Teachers ICT initiative .  For full details of the Memory 4 Project, visit www.memory4teachers.co.uk, where teachers can also register for the free USB memory stick.