The Cued Speech System American English I really started with the conclusion that what was needed was a convenient way to represent spoken language accurately, through vision, in real time. (R. Orin Cornett) In 1966, Dr. R. Orin Cornett invented Cued Speech so children who were deaf or hard of hearing could improve their reading skills by visually accessing spoken languages. He believed these children were often poor readers because they did not know the language they were reading well enough to transfer meaning to the written word. Dr. Cornett knew that approximately fifty per cent of spoken English was visible from the information on the mouth and face. He designed cueing to convey all of the features (phonemes) of American English through sight alone. Although the system was intended to be synchronized with spoken English, thirty years of research confirms that the auditory "sounds" of speech are not needed to express and receive a cued language. The visual components of the Cued Speech System include: eight (8) handshapes to distinguish consonant features four (4) hand placements combined with three (3) mouth shapes to distinguish the vowel features of American English.  Cueing has been adapted to over 50 other languages. Sources:  Beaupre (1984); Wandel (1989); Cornett (1991); Fleetwood and Metzger (1998) | Mission Statement | Cued Speech | Handshapes | | Hand Placements | Baby & Kid-Friendly Cueing | | Speech and Language | Spoken and Cued English | Phoneme? | | English and ASL | Program | Teaching Staff | | Speech/Language Services | Audiology | Transliteration | | Cue Camps | Cueing Classes | Organizations | Parent Contacts | | Research | Web Sites |    Home Last Updated: 4/00 Judy L. Kelch jkelch@fc.fcps.k12.va.us