07-12-2006

For the first time in a decade, top international researchers as well as participants from around the United States will attend Cued Speech: Celebrating Language, Literacy, and Excellence—a major national conference that celebrates the progress in the education of deaf/hard of hearing students since Cued Speech was invented 40 years ago.

Cued Speech is a mode of communication that visually represents the sounds of language. Research indicates that cuers across the nation achieve literacy rates equal to their hearing peers, and have broken the paradigm of low literacy rates associated with deaf education.

Jacqueline LeyBaert of the Free University of Brussells, as well as Charles Berlin, former professor of otorhinolaryngology, head and neck surgery, and physiology, and director of Kresge Hearing Research Laboratory at Louisiana State University, will be keynote speakers and presenters. Berlin is known for making complicated auditory concepts accessible to parents, teachers, hearing aid specialists, and his students.

The conference will provide a forum at which experts, educators, and families can come together and share their experience and expertise for the first time in a decade. It will take place at Towson University from July 20-23, 2006. The program includes seminars on cochlear implants, early intervention, cued language transliteration, and discussions of various applications for cueing. A Gala Awards Dinner remembering the inventor of Cued Speech, R. Orin Cornett, as well as special activities, will be held. Children’s and teen programs will be held in coordination with the conference.

For more conference information, visit www.cuedspeech.org.