It's been two weeks since my CI was activated, and I keep meaning to blog about it, but so far I haven't gotten around to it. Translation: I'm a lazy slacker. For now, suffice it to say that it's going *extremely* well - better than I expected, even - because I have another topic I want to talk about.

Cued speech is a fairly controversial topic in some circles. It's often used as a tool for language acquisition, and while I have met people for whom it seems to have worked very well, I'm willing to accept (and even in some cases agree with) the statement that it is in some ways a throwback to the old-fashioned methods of oralism.

That said, there are adult cuers out there. Some of them are late or progressively deaf people who want a visual method of communication that is 'easier' (in quotes because that's a somewhat subjective statement) than ASL or PSE. Some grew up cueing, but still cue (and yes, among cuers who have both Cued English and ASL as shared languages, you will see cueing used socially, contrary to popular myth). And some people are just playing with another cool toy - I would put myself in that category.

So there is a population out there that is interested in cued speech for reasons that have nothing to do with language acquisition, literacy, or childhood development. It becomes tiring, then, when people post tirades about the Evils of Cued Speech in threads or blogs that are not about those topics, but are instead about the mechanics of CS - information that could be very useful to the population of cuers who freely choose to cue! Particularly frustrating is when a poster acknowledges that CS can be useful in some cases, and only has a problem when CS is used with children, but persists in flooding such a discussion.

In addition, we often see similar discussions where a given method or tool is deemed appropriate for adults but not children. For example, there seems to be a general agreement that SEE is less appropriate as a native language (or lifestyle language) for children when compared with ASL, even if it has its uses in ESL classes. But there's no pileup on those posters who grew up with SEE and say they still prefer it over ASL; after all, it's what they're used to. (A similar analogy might be made with adult vs. child use of cochlear implants - that discussion tends to fall somewhere in between the CS discussion and the SEE discussion in this regard.)

I guess the bottom line for me is: leaving any discussion of childhood education aside, there are people who voluntarily choose to do things that you might not, because it's the right choice for them. That right - to make the choices that work best for oneself - is important, perhaps even sacred, as long as it's not negatively impacting on others.