w NCSA Cueing Pioneers Award
NCSA Cueing Pioneers Award
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| Cueing Pioneers Award is given to parents or professionals
who recognized the potential of Cued Speech, began to use it
in its initial stages, and stayed with it. Presented on July
22, 2006 |
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Andrew Balderson became active
in the cueing community in 1975. Andy was active in the formation
of the Cued Speech Association, and was president in 1978 and
1979. He worked with the Scher and McIntosh families to get
funding for the Cued Speech Program at the National Child Research
Center. Next he, the Schers and the Fellows were successful
in getting the Cued Speech track established in Montgomery County
Public schools under PL 94 –142. He was also one of the
three major people who worked in the creation of the NCSA (1982),
and then he served on the board of that organization. |
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Mary Lou Barwell was a teacher
of the deaf who had learned Cued Speech in Australia and then
worked at the Gallaudet preschool. She was ready when Dr Cornett
worked to establish a cueing class, and she became the teacher
in the cueing preschool on the Gallaudet campus in 1972. With
a lot of work from Dr. Cornett, parents, and supportive professionals,
the program moved to its own space at the National Child Research
Center off the campus in 1973. Mary Lou also worked as a parent-infant
teacher, going into many homes with Cued Speech lessons, and
teaching parents how to work with their deaf infants and toddlers.
When children graduated from NCRC, Mary Lou supported their
parents looking for alternative private and public schools.
During the 1977-1979 school years, she met with supervisors
and taught training classed to professionals in Montgomery
County to prepare for the Cued Speech Program which began
in the fall of 1979. After the NCRC program ended, she began
teaching in Montgomery County Public Schools. She currently
teaches an upper elementary self-contained Cued Speech class
and provides resource services for mainstreamed students at
Flower Valley Elementary School in Rockville, Maryland. According
to “her parents,” Mary Lou had the special intuitive
quality of being able to thoroughly relate to and connect
with those she taught. That quality made her exceptional.
She was the professional in the trenches, who carried them
along and brought them to the point of confident independence.
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Jay and Kaydee (deceased) Fellows
started to cue in 1971 with their daughter Tiri, and Jay was
president of the Cued Speech Association twice during the next
few years. Tiri was one of the first three students to have
a cueing teacher at National Child Research Center. They worked
with the Schers and Baldersons to convince Montgomery County
that PL 94 -142 should be used to start a Cued Speech track
in the county. Tiri then attended grade three in Montgomery
County Public Schools without a transliterator. Her good performance
that year convinced officials to hire the first transliterator,
Linda Balderson. Kaydee also worked as a transliterator in the
county. |
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Karen (deceased) and Chuck McIntosh
worked with Barry Scher and Andy Balderson to get funding for
the Cued Speech Program at the National Child Research Center,
the first program that used cueing teachers. After NCRC, Rob
attended a Montessori School in Crofton, MD. The school was
very receptive and enthusiastic about enrolling a deaf child
that used Cued Speech. Karen worked continuously with the staff
at the school. Rob's teacher learned to cue, eliminating the
need for a transliterator. Rob attended later schools without
transliterators, but the family cued at home. His parents filed
an unsuccessful suit to get a CS transliterator when Rob attended
NTID. (As of 2005, after many more similar requests, having
a CST is now possible at NTID.) Karen was a dedicated and committed
parent, volunteering wherever and whenever she was needed. She
was one of the original Cue Camp Friendship committee members,
from 1992 until her death. Chuck continued to help the NCSA
board for years. |
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Sheila Scher met some cueing
parents at a meeting of parents with deaf and hard of hearing
children. Their anecdotes of their children’s language
levels convinced Sheila that Cued Speech was worth investigating
for her deaf two year old, Steven, whose language was delayed.
She quickly met with Dr. Cornett at Gallaudet. His vision matched
hers, and Sheila immediately began learning to cue and found
a cueing tutor for Steven. In the Fall of 1976, he entered the
National Child Research Center with two other children. Returning
to Steven’s previous program after NCRC ended was not
acceptable, so Sheila joined the other parents in convincing
the Montgomery County to add a Cued Speech track alongside the
oral and total communication tracks, the only program in the
country to have three tracks. In those early years Sheila was
the "on-call" parent/interpreter/substitute teacher
for the Cued Speech program. It was a new situation and the
parents wore many hats. She was always available to the teachers
and any staff member to help ensure that the Cued Speech track
would be successful and a continuing part of deaf education.
Sheila served as the Cued Speech Association president in 1981,
was one of the founding members of the Maryland Cued Speech
Association, and was an important part of the Cue Camp Friendship
team from 1992 to 1999. |
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Charles and Sue Swadley both
signed the incorporation papers of the first parents’
organization, Concerned Individuals for the Educational Promotion
of Cued Speech (CIEPCS), in 1973, and Charles was the first
president. That year their son Paul, with Tommy Wells and Tiri
Scott, was in the first class with cueing teachers, Mary Lou
Barwell and Terry Vanden Bosch, at the National Child Research
Center. Next they joined the other parents in convincing the
Montgomery County to add a Cued Speech track alongside the oral
and sign language tracks, the only program in the country to
have three tracks. In 1977 all three students were mainstreamed
into their local county schools, Paul going to Beech Tree Elementary
School, Fairfax County, where teacher Rosemary Davis volunteered
for the new program. She visited Swadleys in August and quickly
learned to cue. That new school program was in Parade Magazine
and on ABC News the next year. After two successful years, the
Swadley family moved away and started the whole process over
again. |
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Kathy and Ron Wells discovered
Tommy was deaf when he was 10 months old, in 1971, and learned
about Cued Speech through talking with parents and teachers
at the Gallaudet Preschool Program. Mary Lou Barwell worked
at the Gallaudet preschool, and taught the first class using
Cued Speech. Terry Vanden Bosch, another cueing teacher of
the deaf, along with Mary Lou Barwell, and other regular teachers
who learned to cue, taught Tommy, Tiri Scott and Paul Swadley
at the National Child Research Center the next fall. Tommy
learned language by leaps and bounds, and the family was hooked
on cueing. They were able to communicate easily and accurately,
as the four Wells children played and grew up as native English
language users. Kathy and Ron were involved from the beginning
in the first Cued Speech Association, with Kathy serving as
president in 1980.
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Cueing Pioneers – Second Group |
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The second group “did it alone in the areas where they
lived.” “We became discouraged, but never with
Cued speech.”
Parents who do it alone are “strong, self motivated
and proud,” said William Robers. “There is a special
bond between them.” Dr. Cornett added, “…hence
the observation by many educators that Cued Speech is a method
for the elite.”
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Ardith and Robert Beadles were
in the early cueing group. They began cueing to daughter Elena
(born in 1967) in 1970 by using audio tapes provided by Dr.
Cornett. After learning to cue, they worked with their daughter
at home to increase her language level before she entered kindergarten
at age six at Durham Academy in Durham, NC, until she graduated
high school. Elena only received Cued Speech at home. Robert
was instrumental in obtaining grant funding for the automatic
cuer project. He was Principal Investigator and Dr. Cornett
was Project Manager throughout their research with the automatic
cuer. |
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Donna and Peter Consacro read
about Cued Speech in the 1978 Parade Magazine article and attended
the first cueing workshop. After a year cueing and signing,
they went against the advice of area professionals and put Grace
into an integrated setting without a transliterator but with
consistent cueing at home. In a year, with a Family Cueing Vacation
and some videotaped cued stories for practice, reading made
sense to Grace, and books became her teachers. Grace was the
only deaf child in her school and was in fifth grade before
she had her first transliterator. |
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June Dixon-Millar brought Cued
Speech to the United Kingdom in 1970. She is the founder and
first Director of the Cued Speech Association UK, formerly The
National Centre for Cued Speech, founded in 1975. She trained
at Homerton College, Cambridge and at Manchester University
Department of Education for the Deaf. She is an international
lecturer and author of numerous articles for professional journals
on deafness. She has been a committee member of charities connected
with deafness and communication, advised the UK Government on
Cued Speech, which culminated in its acceptance. She has adapted
Cued Speech into 12 languages. She has published training materials
for all ages of deaf people with different degrees and types
of hearing loss, and this year produced a CD-ROM ‘Cued
Speech Activities for Children’. |
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Elizabeth Hightower (St. Louis,
MO) began cueing with Sarah in 1976 when she was 5 1/2 years
old, and her parents cued all the time, though there has seldom
been a transliterator in school. |
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Nancy and Ken (deceased) Johndrow
(Ellington, CT) discovered Cued Speech through an article
in Parade Magazine in 1978. At that same time Dr. Cornett
was a presenter at the Alexander Graham Bell convention nearby,
and Ken and Nancy met him there. Intrigued by what Dr Cornett
claimed about Cued Speech, they brought their family to the
first Cued Speech Family Program in the summer of 1978. Within
six weeks of returning home the success shown by Scott in
both his expressive and receptive language was incredible.
The decision to continue to cue was made. Scott, with a Cued
Speech interpreter/tutor, attended kindergarten in his home
school, achieving all goals set for him as well as receiving
high recommendations from his teachers. Even so, his elementary
school felt that they could not meet Scott’s needs.
Nancy and Ken went through due process. The Board reconsidered,
and Scott continued his successful educational experience
through the Ellington School system, which shared the success
that he had with other school systems around the country.
Nancy taught many of Scott’s teachers and interpreters
to cue.
The Johndrows were part of a phenomenon that occurred over
and over at family cue camps: parents were alone in cueing
where they lived, but came to camp every year to be with other
parents who believed that cueing was the best way for their
child. They encouraged each other with their success stories
and supported each other during the hard times. The Maslins,
Wheelers, Johndrows and McGlones - “The Big Four”-
met that first summer and returned every summer for years,
learning themselves but also helping with other families who
were there. Their cueing children, Scott, Amy and the two
Jeffs, were known as “the pioneers”. |
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When Peter and Rebecca
Jones discovered their daughter was deaf, they were working
in France. Rebecca heard about Cued Speech from her mother,
who read about it in a pamphlet. Rebecca visited the United
States and met with Dr. Cornett. She and Peter began to cue
in English when Stasie was 2 years, 4 months old. After only
six months, Stasie had over 500 spoken words and had begun to
speak some French. Her parents cued in English at home and in
French outside the home. Stasie became fluent in both languages
and completed her education in French. Twice in her childhood,
Stasie had a few months in a cued English educational environment,
but her family did not move back to the U.S. until she was at
Wellesley College. Cued Speech provided Stasie with a sound
language base, which allowed her later to learn German, Spanish,
and Russian. After receiving her BA, she got two Master's degrees
and is presently teaching at Kendall School and working on a
PhD. The Jones family also passed their success with Cued Speech
along to the French speech therapists and parents of deaf children.
This soon led to the creation of the French Cued Speech Association,
the Association Langage Parlé Completé. |
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Mike and Janeane Maslin (New
Jersey) read about Cued Speech in the 1978 Parade Magazine article
and attended Gallaudet for a class with Mary Elsie Daisey and
Betsy Kipila as instructors. Jeff was six and in pre-school.
After one bad experience, Mike and Janeane went to their second
IEP meeting at school with a copy of the law and a plan of action.
The school system was cooperative when the Maslins stated that
mainstreaming would be the least restrictive environment. At
home, Janeane cued and Mike signed for a year, and then they
began to cue exclusively. Janeane was Jeff’s transliterator
until a trained transliterator was provided. The whole family
went to the first Family Cued Speech Program at Gallaudet the
summer of 1978 and for many more years. |
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Kent and Peggy McGlone (Fredericksburg,
VA) read about Cued Speech in that Spring 1978 Parade Magazine
article when Amy was 22 months old. After being in an oral/aural
program and then Sign Language, using their own language made
sense to them. The Monday after they read the article, Peggy
called the Cued Speech Office at Gallaudet and talked to Dr.
Cornett for 1 ½ hours, arranging to learn Cued Speech
there two weeks later. After that 3 day class they felt free
to say anything to Amy, slowly, of course. She responded quickly
to cueing, and they were thrilled when their other 5 children
learned to cue and within days were much better and faster than
they were. That summer of 1978 they attended the Family Cued
Speech Program with the Maslins, and met Wheelers and Johndrows:
The Big Four.
A pre-school teacher learned to cue to work with Amy. The
parents of the other hearing-impaired children in her class
were insistent that Amy must be able to hear. Eventually,
they all changed their children to C.S Signing teachers in
the school kept telling parents of the other children that
C.S. would not work if a child had no hearing. Amy was mainstreamed
in the public school system from the second grade aided by
a C.S. transliterator. Many times it was a lonely struggle
to fight for what they believed to be best for their daughter.
“But we are glad she's always been a part of our family,
knowing inside jokes and family secrets. Best of all, we talk
with her, and she is with us in good times and in bad times.”
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Diane and William Robers heard
about Cued Speech when Gina was 2 years old. They attended a
two-day workshop presented by Dr. Cornett near them in February
of 1979. They saw immediate results even with their limited
cueing abilities. Before long, Gina’s word comprehension
was growing so quickly that the Robers realized they had to
become better trained just to keep up with her progress. They
went to a week long Family Cued Speech Workshop at Gallaudet
College in 1979. Soon the family and their baby sitter were
able to cue Happy Birthday to three-year-old Gina. With her
expanding understanding, Gina had lost almost all of that frustration
that is so typical from a lack of communication. Cueing was
not allowed in her school for deaf children, so Gina was home
schooled for pre-school. In elementary school, Gina was mainstreamed
and had a transliterator in high school. The family always cued,
giving Gina the rich language that families build together. |
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Stan Rupert attended the first
Cued Speech workshop at Gallaudet College July 12-17, 1967 with
a group of nine other administrators or classroom supervisors
to learn Cued Speech. These ten people learned the system and
its purpose in one week. The second workshop, July 19 -24, included
100 people from the United States who broke into groups of ten
and were instructed by the first group. Because of a last minute
cancellation at the second workshop, Joan was able to attend.
The Idaho State School for the Deaf was interested in this new
visual aid to language, so Stan gave cueing workshops for the
staff. The preschool/elementary department decided to employ
Cued Speech on a trial basis, incorporating it into an already
oral department for two years. Because of the 1969 "wave"
of total communication, the administration decided to disband
Cued Speech and adopt a signed English system. The Ruperts were
offered jobs in California at the Solano County program for
deaf and hard of hearing students because they were using Cued
Speech, and it was offered as a communication option for families
for 10 years. Joan opened the West Coast Cued Speech Resource
Center in 1983. Stan and Joan continue to teach Cued Speech,
present at professional meetings and support cueing families
in the Western region. |
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Eleanor and Richard Sharp’s
son David was eight and not doing well in language when they
read about Cued Speech in their local Philadelphia paper in
1978, and decided to attend the Gallaudet workshop. There they
met cueing children the same age as David who blew them away
with their ability to read. Eleanor and Richard knew then that
they had to learn this method. They arranged for Mary Lou Barwell
to come to their home and help them implement the Tate curriculum
(from Australia). They shared their exciting information about
Cued Speech with other families and together created a cueing
program for their children, with Pam Planker as teacher. But
when the school district continually resisted providing the
services requested, the Sharps decided to move to St. Amant,
LA, where there was a cueing program. After a year of concentrated
language learning, they moved back, closer to home, and Eleanor
became David’s full-time transliterator in school. Even
though a late starter, David did well with all the cueing support
from his family. |
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When Pat and David Wheeler’s
son Jeff, was born in 1966, there didn’t seem to be a
lot of options for a family determined to treat their son as
normally as possible. Pam Beck was an early elementary school
teacher who suggested Cued Speech to them. They were a bit resistant
but decided to give it a try. The whole family attended the
1978 summer Family Cued Speech Program at Gallaudet College.
Jeff’s sister, Kristan, needed to know there were other
little girls with deaf siblings. From that point on cueing was
a natural part of the Wheelers’ lives. In junior and senior
high, other families and the educators resisted ”that
thing you do on your hands”, but Jeff succeeded in spite
of them. He was cited at his graduation (with Kristin as transliterator)
as a lesson in overcoming obstacles. When he graduated from
NTID and then RIT his advisor told Wheelers that Jeff was the
most “normal” deaf kid he had ever met. Cued Speech
made that possible. It was from the small, widely spread group
of cuers in Connecticut and the families at the Summer Family
Cued Speech Program that Pat and David drew the support and
strength they needed to succeed through these years. |
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