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10/10/2015  |   9:45 AM - 11:00 AM   |  Andrew Foster Auditorium

Introduction of cued Amharic to Ethiopian deaf education

Purpose: To describe the adaptation of cued speech to the Amharic language and its introduction to deaf education in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Introduction: Cued speech was first introduced to Gallaudet University by Dr. Orin Cornett in 1967. Eight handshapes and 4 hand positions, in tandem with lip motions, clarify all the phonemes of spoken English. Because of the simplicity of these gestures, they can be learned quickly and can be presented in real time. Amharic, the national language of Ethiopia, is written in symbols, each of which is a consonant-vowel phoneme. Because its orthography is deeply ingrained into the culture, this language appeared to be ideally suited to cued speech adaption. Description of Project: Adaptation of the Amharic syllabary (known as the fidel) to cued speech was created by an experienced cuer, with help from 2 native speakers. Cued Amharic was introduced at one of the deaf elementary schools in Addis Ababa during a weeklong workshop. Attendees were 30 deaf students, 8 teachers (both deaf and hearing), and 4 parents, for a total of 42 attendees. Findings: At each of the 3 deaf schools approached, the administration and teachers expressed very positive interest in learning the cued Amharic system. Most of the participants were able to learned the cued Amharic system within 3 days of the workshop. The hearing impaired students and teachers quickly understood the purpose of cueing – to make visible all the sounds that the “listener” can not see on the lips, while the hearing participants were less likely to grasp this point. Entire cost of developing the workbook and implementing the workshop was less than $12,000. Future Plans: Workshops for the same type of clientele are planned, as well as follow-up sessions for previous attendees, and for classroom teaching strategies.

• another way to help deaf education
• another way to increase language use
• introduce low cost language interventions

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Miriam Redleaf (POC,Primary Presenter,Co-Author), University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System, mredleaf@uic.edu;
Dr. Redleaf completed residency in Otolaryngology and fellowship in Neurotology at The University of Iowa. She the Louis J. Mayer Professor of Otology/Neurotology at the University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System.