Cued Speech

A visual communication system that combines mouth movements of speech with hand shapes and positions (cues) near the face to make spoken language visually accessible. Unlike sign language, which is an independent language with its own grammar, cued speech represents the phonemes of a spoken language visually, helping lip-readers distinguish between sounds that look identical on the lips (such as /p/ and /b/). The speaker uses eight hand shapes in four positions near the face to disambiguate visemes, making it possible to fully understand spoken language through vision alone. Cued speech has been used in educational settings to support literacy development in deaf and hard of hearing children.