Cued Speech: Guide

Supporting Cochlear Implant Users

Experiencing a cued language early in a child’s development will have long-lasting effects on the child’s ability to learn that language auditorily later, when they receive the cochlear implant.  For all children the first four years of life are vital for language acquisition, it may take many months for a clear diagnosis and approval for implant surgery and then there is a further wait before ‘switch on’.  Every day that a child goes without access to language in those early years will add to the overall language delay that then has to be addressed in the already intense rehabilitation process post surgery.

Children who have been cued to all along will already be acquiring language at the same rate as their hearing peers, they can then map their visual phonemic and language knowledge to the auditory signal given by their implant and so greatly hasten the rehabilitation process.

A strong case can be made for the addition of Cued Speech to the signal delivered by the cochlear implant in order to help deaf children overcome present limitations of cochlear implants. 

Jacqueline Leybaert, PhD Professor of Psychology, Laboratoire Cognition, Langage, et Développement (LCLD), Université Libre de Bruxelles (U.L.B.), Belgium and Carol J. LaSasso, PhD Professor, Department of Hearing, Speech and Language Sciences, Gallaudet University, Washington D.C. 

This document outlines in simple terms how CS can be used to support language acquisition pre-implant and to support the rehabilitation process post implant.

This document explains and quotes research into the use of CS to support CI users.

These research results  show how the use of CS enabled deaf children and adults to develop an awareness of the structure of oral language pre-implant which supported their rehabilitation post-late-implant.

Power point presentation slides by Jane Smith – a communication specialist - outlining the benefits and challenges of using cochlear implants and how CS can be used by parents to safeguard language development before implantation and when listening is not possible.