Cued Speech SA

History of Cued Speech in South Africa

Cued Speech in South Africa is in its infancy compared to the USA and UK where it has been in use for many decades.  The late Dr Cornett  was keen to have the system accesible in as many languages as possible, and, many years back, worked with Dr Hamilton from Worcester in the  Cape  on a draft Cued Speech version for Afrikaans speakers.  These were still early years in the development of Cued Speech and it was not introduced at that time, for a variety of reasons into SA.   This rough draft was based on US English model.  

Sporadic efforts were made by individuals in South Africa over the years  to use Cued Speech, but, until even a few years ago only a limited number of educationists had even heard of it.  Fortunately Cued Speech in South Africa, is making up for lost ground,  with a growing number of teachers and speech therapists using it on a daily basis.

Cued Speech South Africa  was founded in 2007, with main objective of promoting the use of Cued Speech in South Africa.  It is a voluntary association and is based near the KZN midlands village of Mid Illovo, approximately 60 km from Pietermaritzburg and 90 km from Durban. 

As SA English is closer to UK English than US English, CSSA  promotes SA Cued English based on this model.

Efforts are in progress to make Afrikaans and Zulu versions of Cued Speech available once all research and checks have been completed.  We are working towards establishing forums where the other official languages of SA  may also be introduced in Cued Speech.  However there is still much work to be done in this regard.

Kwa Thintwa School for the Deaf at Inchanga KZN was the first school in South Africa to use Cued speech in its Foundation phase as an educational tool in conjunction with the THRASS phonics programme in 2006.

Sbonga communicating with educator and co-founder of Cued Speech SA, Lynette Diederichs.  Lynette received her Cued Speech training in the UK and USA, she is a certified Cued Speech Facilitator

Making Cued Speech history in SA , Sibongile Dlamini  is one of the first teachers trained in South Africa to use Cued Speech in the classroom.  She teaches Grade 1 at KTS and is a board member of Cued Speech SA 

The software programme Phoneme Machine 6 developed by THRASS has a Cued Speech component.  Alan Davies the developer of THRASS has done much to promote phonics within Deaf Education with this commendable initiative.  THRASS and Cued Speech work well together as they both work on the 44 phonemes of the English Language.  Alan is supportive of Cued speech and those wishing to see how Cued Speech and THRASS can work together should visit his website www.THRASS.co.uk

Cued Speech SA  provides information, training and  support to those wishing to learn Cued speech .  Enquiries can be made directly to CSSA The e-mail address being lynettecues@cuedspeech.co.za 

Foundation & Refresher Courses are held at Camp Shebaniah

Recent Foundation Course attendees at Camp Shebaniah were Colin and Ineke from Durban.  Cued Speech Courses can be adapted to meet the needs of couples, families, educators and other interested parties.

Courses in other provinces or neighbouring countries can be arranged should the need arise.