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Cued Speech adapted for Visual Amharic in Ethiopia: Empowering families with communication access, language acquisition, and literacy for their children who are deaf and hard of hearing

In February 2017 the presenter was honored to be part of one team of professionals who traveled to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to teach Visual Amharic to two groups of children, their parents, their teachers, and two cochlear implant surgeons. Visual Amharic is an adaptation of Cued Speech that is a communication system that clarifies the ambiguity of lipreading phonemes for infants and young children who are deaf and acquiring spoken languages. To represent the Ethiopian language of Amharic a consonant-vowel syllabary was used to teach the sounds of their language using a system of handshapes and vowel placements near the face. Cued Speech was developed in 1966 to promote literacy in children who are deaf. The presenter will engage the audience in learning some cues and show videos of infants and toddlers acquiring cued languages. The presenter will explain how Cued Speech came to be adapted to more than 60 languages and most recently to Amharic for use with children in Ethiopia who are deaf. Videos will be shown of Ethiopian children from ages 4-18 and their parents and teachers successfully using Visual Amharic for the first time after one week of instruction. The benefits of using cued languages will be shared including use with: children birth to 12 months diagnosed as deaf but too young to be implanted; children who use hearing assistance technology (hearing aids, cochlear implants, BAHAs) to access spoken language; children who have received cochlear implants but need a compatible visual system to clarify the phonological contrasts they are hearing; families where parents speak more than one language in the home or families where parents use spoken language and sign language and want their children to be bilingual and literate. Results of research will be included.

• Identify features unique to Cued Speech which enable users of Cued Speech to visually convey and receive information at the fundamental phonemic level for any traditionally spoken language in real time.
• List 4 benefits of using cued languages with children with cochlear implants.
• Describe Visual Amharic and how it can be paired with sign language to support bilingualism.

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Polly Earl (POC,Primary Presenter), National Cued Speech Association, mainecues@gmail.com;
Dr. Earl has worked with children who are deaf and hard of hearing for 39 years, including work as a speech/language pathologist, teacher, and special education consultant. Polly received her Doctorate in Special Education from the University of Cincinnati in 2006. Her dissertation research was a case study of a baby with auditory neuropathy who was cued to by her parents in Dutch and Spanish. She first saw Dr. R. Orin Cornett, the inventor of Cued Speech, speak in 1978 at the University of Maine. Since then Polly has supported the use of Cued Speech with children and adults to provide clear and consistent access to spoken languages. Polly currently works as a Public School Outreach Consultant for the Maine Education Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Fort Fairfield, Maine and is Adjunct Faculty at the University of Maine in Presque Isle, teaching American Sign Language and Language Development in the Exceptional Learner. Dr. Earl also enjoys serving as the Chair of the Academic Advisory Council for the National Cued Speech Association by supporting collaboration and information sharing between professionals worldwide who support language acquisition and literacy in more than 65 cued languages.

ASHA DISCLOSURE: Financial - Nonfinancial -

AAA DISCLOSURE: Financial - No relevant financial relationship exists.