All is quiet in our house right now. I’m the only one awake. Let’s see if I can start/finish this before house becomes alive again.
Why are we cueing to our daughter?
- Inclusive household
- Communication purposes
- Cued American English is our native and preferred mode
- Exposing her to various learning styles to promote literacy development
- Auditory-visual access to the English language
- Tactile/kinesthetic stimulation
How do we incorporate cueing into our daily lives?
- Began cueing to her when she was a few hours old, if not minutes old (I was heavily medicated so first few hours are blurry)
- Consistently cue to her at all times
- Of course, there are times where I may say something and not cue it, but 95% of the time, I’ll repeat and add cueing
- Sometimes as I cue basic words to her, I will take her hand and move it around her mouth to imitate same vowel placements
- Repetition. Lots of it.
- Cue with both voice on/off. Depends on her attention span in the moment.
- Read and cue lots of books to her (I think we have a bookworm on our hands as reading to her really calms her down)
- If it’s just Aaron and I talking to each other, we cue so Arabella is indirectly exposed to cueing.
- We currently focus on handshape 5 and 1 as those are easier to form on her hand
- “mmmmmm (hs 5) is for mmmmommy” “mmmmmmm is for mmmmmilk”
- “d, d, d (hs 1) is for daddy”. “P, p, p (hs 1) is for pee, pee and poo, poo”
- We ask those who know how to cue to cue to her even if they’re not talking to us.
That’s all for now. Part two will be about how we know she is attending to our cueing. Feel free to share this with anyone. Our belief is anyone can benefit from Cued Speech, not just people with hearing loss.
Here’s proof we have a bookworm. She loves to help turn the pages and must somehow be holding onto the book when we read.
Wow! This must be a record. I started AND finished typing this from the iPad (especially with the most annoying auto correct). I even got on to my laptop to edit. Now I’m going to enjoy my cuppa coffee and enjoy this rare peace and quiet although I feel out of place not having to attend to the cat or the baby. 😉
~M-B
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