Dr. R. Orin Cornett joined Gallaudet College in 1965 as vice president for long-range planning. Not knowing much about the deaf community at the time of his hiring, he quickly saw how deaf and hard-of-hearing people struggled with English and lipreading due to a variety of factors. Dr. Cornett wanted to improve language acquisition in deaf and hard-of-hearing children, so he developed Cued Speech. Cued Speech makes sounds visible through hand signs around the mouth while one is speaking. It distinguishes sounds that look the same on the lips.
Dr. Cornett eventually led Gallaudet's Cued Speech Programs and then led the Center for Studies in Language and Communication at Gallaudet. Until the day he died in 2002, Dr. Cornett advocated for the use of Cued Speech with deaf and hard-of-hearing children.
This collection has been made available through a collaboration with the National Cued Speech Association upon their receipt of an appropriation in 2005. Part of the appropriation called for creating a library of works by and about Dr. Cornett and Cued Speech.
