#cued speech

[fuckyeahasl]

Opinion | Is There a Right Way to Be Deaf?

I’ve always felt like the object of a constant tug of war between the deaf and the hearing communities.

[superlinguo]

A couple of years ago I wrote a post reminiscing about cued articulation - a series of hand shapes that are used to teach children the differences between sounds:

The cool thing now is that I realise the relationship between them that I never noticed before - to make a 'b’ you use the same handshape as 'p’, but with two fingers on the top, because it’s the voiced equivalent. It’s the same for s/z, k/g and f/v if I remember correctly. Unfortunately I can’t find a decent chart on the internet to show them all to you.

Since then, I’ve found something better than a chart - I’ve found videos of people using the system. I’ve actually found quite a few, I think people have to, or want to, make these for their studies. Above is a short video from Svetlana Ava who goes through all the consonants and vowels.

These hand shapes are designed specifically for English speaking children, particularly UK/Aus English spoken where the creator studied and worked.

Even if you’ve never studied phonetics before, you’ll noticed the relationship between the hand shapes and sounds. The voiced and unvoiced pair are made in the same place, with the voiced using two fingers instead of one. Fricatives and liquids involve more continued movement than stops, and nasals have no articulator movement.

Front vowels move forward, back vowels backwards. Rounded vowels involve a rounding of the hands, and the higher the vowel, the higher the position of the fingers in relation to the hand. Diphthongs move between the two target vowel hand shapes.

Speech Path Annie told me that some people give the system the punny nickname ‘cute articulation’.

[no-pants-dan]

Are there any Deaf or HoH people or people with auditory processing disorders in disability activism/feminist disability activism (or not, open to as many diverse opinions as possible) who have opinions on ASL vs Cued English? 

I’m trying to understand the discourses around Deaf culture and the uses of ASL as a piece of that culture versus how Cued English seems to act more in the way of assimilation. Most of the things I’ve looked at that are pro-cued english seem to be from the perspective of hearing individuals. 

The conclusion that I’ve come to so far is that ASL is very important and should be the primary mode of communication with Deaf and HoH people but that Cued Speech is really helpful for some people with processing disorders. Cued Speech is not a substitute for ASL and should not be used instead of ASL, but can be beneficial for some people. Thoughts? Reading suggestions?

[teach-with-your-hands]

“The world's fastest rapper collaborates with www.CueEverything.com to produce a groundbreaking cuesic (music) video so deaf individuals can actually experience the lyrics being rapped with Cued Speech.”

[dafthappiness]

Tips on learning cued speech?

I’m headed off to a rather large college in the fall and will hopefully be meeting a whole ton of new people, I’d like to learn how to used cued speech (and maybe a little sign language?)  just in case I meet someone who may be hearing impaired. I just want to be able to communicate with everyone!

So, knowing this, does anyone have any tips on how to get started learning? Like any video series or good websites with some graphics?

Thanks in advance!

[alcalavicci]

Ugh, so apparently the "Deaf-power" (how I phrased it to a normie deaf friend- it's a sign used to represent Deaf pride.) "advocates" (in quotes since they're only hurting the community, not helping) are screeching about cued speech, saying how it's based on the dreaded ORALISM and want 100% ASL. Cued speech also has an "agenda." I can't even. An agenda?! Tell that to my native cuer friends, who are apparently clueless of this fucking so-called agenda. These Deaf-power people are, frankly, the crazy conspiratards of the deaf community. Trying to debate with them is like debating a wall. Anything you bring up, they'll shred to bits. And the approach they're trying to advocate for, only ASL? It won't work for absolutely every deaf kid out there. Even if you could somehow convince exhausted parents of a deaf newborn to learn a foreign language so their kid has a chance at the Deaf pinnacle of achievement, there are still a few out there that it won't work for. Cece Bell writes in El Deafo that she lost her hearing as a kid, and even though her mom and a friend of a friend tried to push sign language on her, she still didn't want to learn. Most likely, it'd be kids who became deaf later in life who would have some resistance to learning sign language. I remember hearing about one deaf girl at ACSD when I was a kid who didn't want to learn sign, even though her mom learned it. Another point... Sure, the deaf community used to be 100% ASL... in the 1800s. Deaf kids were put into deaf schools and signed because they had no other choice. Today, technology is a thing. I think parents should be presented with BOTH sides of the argument and decide on manual, oral or both. I've heard of some parents giving their deaf kids cochlear implants and learning sign or cueing, which I honestly think is the best of both worlds. If the CIs fail, the kid has sign language and the deaf community. If the kid succeeds with the CI, then they started out with access to language. And fwiw, cued speech was invented as a deaf equivalent to phonetics, to help with reading ability, which is still a problem in the deaf community in general. You'd think those conspiratards would be more concerned about literacy levels, but apparently not!

[dead-deaf-roommate]

Tbh, maybe if I have cued speech I can actually learn other languages.

Like how fucking awesome would it be to take a Spanish class and have a cued transliterator so I can understand?

[dead-deaf-roommate]

I'm also learning cued speech.

And it's hard and weird as a Deaf person, learning a language that's oppressive to my community.

But I am, because I want to be able to communicate with deaf people who have learned different communication mechanisms, from cued speech to ASL and back again.

It's just weird.