Cued Speech Association UK

Who we are

With Cued Speech, your deaf baby or deaf child can:

» Understand and use the English Language
» Become fully literate.

If you have a deaf baby or child, or support one at school or nursery, we can help you communicate, and enable your child to fully learn the English language, by teaching you the simple system of Cued Speech (CS). CS, which can be learnt in about 20 hours, combines eight handshapes in four positions near the mouth, with the lip patterns of normal speech, to make every sound a person is saying visually clear.

CS can work alongside British Sign Language (BSL) for true bilingualism in both BSL and English, and complements the use of hearing aids and implants.

Understanding English - With Cued Speech 96% of speech can be lip-read, making it easy for deaf children to learn and understand English1.

Early language and normal brain development – our charity can teach Cued Speech to a hearing parent or teacher in only about 20 hours.  Cued Speech is ‘just’ the English language so once the system has been learnt parents and teachers can make the whole of the English language fully visible; learning it is rather like learning to type if you can already write.  Babies and children can absorb the whole of the English language without delay4 just as hearing children do.

Belonging and self-esteem – an American study of 32 adults who grew up with Cued Speech found ‘high levels of self-esteem and self-confidence, which they credit to their parents’ choice of CS, their early childhood experiences of feeling included in family activities and conversations and in peer groups, and positive feelings of competence and success in school’5.

Literacy - International research demonstrates that deaf children brought up with Cued Speech achieve reading scores equivalent to hearing children6 and that they learn to read using an internal phonetic model7, just like hearing children. 

Access to education - Teachers and other professionals use Cued Speech to give deaf children full access to lessons at school, college and university.

Cued Speech is inclusive - it helps deaf children get the best from their hearing aids and cochlear implants. and can be used together with BSL to give complete bilingualism. 

Cued Speech can also be used with older deaf children and adults to help them learn or improve their English, with hearing children with language problems and it helps deafened people to continue to communicate in English.

Because Cued Speech has been adapted into over 50 different languages and dialects it can also be used in the home by families for whom English is a second language. 

For any jobs with Cued Speech Association UK, see below: