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The R. Orin Cornett Papers on Cued Speech

 Collection
Identifier: MSS216

Scope and Contents

This collection includes extensive material covering Dr. Cornett’s work on developing and promoting Cued Speech between 1967 and the early 1980s. The bulk is Dr. Cornett’s correspondence, as well as essays and papers he wrote on various aspects of Cued Speech.

Also included is some Cued Speech teaching material, including word and phoneme lists, audiotapes, videotapes, and film loops, and even phonograph records. There is also material from Cued Speech workshops, in particular the original 1967 training project and various family workshops held in the 1970s and 1980s.

Dates

  • Creation: 1966 - 1984

Biographical / Historical

Born in Driftwood, Oklahoma, in 1913, R. Orin Cornett studied mathematics and physics at Oklahoma Baptist University, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Texas. He taught at Oklahoma Baptist, Pennsylvania State, and Harvard before coming to Washington, DC, in 1959 to take a position at the Department of Education.

In 1965, Dr. Cornett was hired by Gallaudet as vice president for long-range planning. This was his first exposure to the deaf community. He was surprised to discover that deaf students often had poor reading test scores, since he believed that written language should naturally be easier for the deaf to learn. He soon learned about the difficulty and unreliability of speechreading, and the way it created challenges for deaf children to learn spoken and written language as naturally as their hearing peers do.

Seeking a way to make language acquisition easier for the deaf, Dr. Cornett developed the system of Cued Speech over the course of three months. He first tested it with a high school friend, Mary Elsie Henegar, who had a deaf child, Leah Henegar. Leah became the first child to learn English through Cued Speech. Her success encouraged Dr. Cornett to begin teaching Cued Speech through workshops for parents and educators of the deaf, beginning in 1967.

Cued Speech, unlike ASL or other sign languages, is not a language. It is a method of making speechreading easier by using hand signs around the mouth to distinguish sounds that are difficult to read from the lips alone. It has the advantages of being relatively quick to learn compared to sign languages, and more accurate than speechreading alone. Since it is based on sounds, not words or letters, it can be easily used to support any spoken language, and by the end of his career Dr. Cornett had seen Cued Speech adapted to over 50 languages and dialects.

In 1975, Dr. Cornett quit his position as vice president of planning to focus full-time on Cued Speech. He became a research professor and director of Gallaudet’s Cued Speech Programs, teaching classes and holding regular workshops on Cued Speech, as well as writing extensively and traveling to seminars and conventions to talk about his work. In 1981, he became chairman of the Center for Studies in Language and Communication at Gallaudet.

Cued Speech received a great deal of interest in the 1970s, including mainstream media attention. However, after the early 1980s, interest in Cued Speech began to drop off. It received criticism from both sides of the deaf education debate: manualists saw it as just another form of oralism, and strict oralists objected to any system that involved use of the hands. Despite the controversy, Cued Speech continues to be taught and used today, including through video courses offered by Gallaudet University.

One other notable contribution Dr. Cornett made at Gallaudet was the introduction of a bass drum at football games to alert players when the ball was hiked. The drum became a symbol of Gallaudet football until it was retired in 2005.

Dr. Cornett retired in 1984, and was made professor emeritus by Gallaudet. Even in retirement, he continued to work to promote Cued Speech. In 1992, he published The Cued Speech Resource Book for Parents of Deaf Children, with a revised edition coming in 2001. He passed away in 2002.

Extent

15 Linear Feet (22 document cases, 1 flat box, 3 record boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Abstract

Papers and recordings of Dr. R. Orin Cornett, Gallaudet professor, vice president for planning, and inventor of the Cued Speech system. Includes correspondence, instructional materials, student work, reports, and educational recordings (such as phonograph records, audiotapes, videotapes, and film strips).

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Donated to the Archives by R. Orin Cornett, 1989.

Related Materials

Digital Media

R. Orin Cornett Memorial Cued Speech Collection. http://gaislandora.wrlc.org/islandora/object/cuedspeech%3A1

Photographs

[Various photographs of R. Orin Cornett]. Gallaudet University Archives, call number: Portraits

Vertical Files

Cornett, R. Orin. Gallaudet University Archives, call number: Deaf Biographical Football – Drum. Gallaudet University Archives, call number: Gallaudetiana

Title
The R. Orin Cornett Papers on Cued Speech
Status
Completed
Author
Shea, Christopher
Date
Original creation February 2017. Last update December 2018. ArchivesSpace version created March 14, 2024.
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Repository Details

Part of the Gallaudet University Archives Repository

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