Family and friends wondered what this Cued Speech journey was all about. No one had ever heard of Cued Speech. Some questioned and gently challenged our choice. The learning curve was steep. Why not American Sign Language? Why not an auditory approach? Questions abounded. The school district even questioned the logic of using Cued Speech with such a young child. We held fast to our commitment. — Katherine Burns-Christenson

From the time I started cueing with Kevin, it made an instant difference. Just adding that hand to go along with my mouth helped Kevin to learn words I used the first time, instead of me having to repeat the same one over and over as I had done before. He picked up words at an amazing rate. I couldn’t even understand fully how he was making the connection between the different hand shapes I was using and what they meant, when I had to be taught each handshape and corresponding phoneme in the spoken English language. — Darla Rance

We came to cueing late. Dan was 10 years old. I was attending a language workshop given by Barbara Lee, and, all of a sudden, I got it. Dan’s problem was he had no language to call his own. The teachers of hearing impaired (HI) students were not signing in English. They said they were, but Dan was not receiving a clear model of the English language…. Cued Speech saved Dan’s life. I wish we had figured it out earlier. — Kathy Goodman

What would I tell parents? If you want a literate deaf child, cue. If there are problems, cue more. If people tell you your child has another disability so you should switch to signing, cue. Sure, seek out other interventions and provide access to a range of communication approaches, but you keep cueing. If he doesn’t seem to look at you, cue. If she doesn’t seem to follow your cueing, cue more slowly. Take pictures of your cues, put them on paper with words, and label everything in the house. And cue. — Donna Morere