Maryland Cued Speech Association

Cue Contact

Amy Ruberl

Name: Amy Rollinson Ruberl

 

Your connection to Cued Speech: Director of CueCamp Friendship, Cued

Speech Consultant, Certified Instructor of Cued Speech, and Teacher of the

Deaf and Hard of Hearing

 

Number of years cueing: 11

 

How did you learn to cue?: I learned to cue from Susan Russell at a

MCAHIC workshop.

 

Describe what CS means to you or what effect it has had on your life.

I was trained as a teacher of the deaf at Clarke School for the Deaf in

Northampton, Massachusetts. While I loved the teachers and curriculum there,

I was frustrated by the difficulty in communicating easily with the students

and instructing them in English. At first I thought Total Communication

would make the process more smooth, but realized that speaking English while

signing is not an effective way to convey any language. When I was teaching

class of oral deaf students in Montgomery County, Maryland I took a Cued

Speech class. I realized then that this was the answer I had been searching

for! When cueing, English was conveyed without confusion and with ease. No

longer was the struggle with communication and concepts, students could

simply focus on the concepts being taught! It took a few years after that

class for a teaching position to open which required skills in Cued Speech.

I was a very slow cuer when I started working with CS students, and although

I practiced all the time, I felt as if speed would never come. After that

first year, I was assigned all the high school cueing students for resource

and speech. That September was a challenge, but my skills quickly improved

as I conversed with and taught students in English using CS. The students I

worked with reinforced in me the value of cueing--they didn't have the same

gaps in knowledge and English that my oral students had. Since then, I have

taken as many CS workshops as I can, I have become a certified instructor of

Cued Speech and taught numerous workshops, I was the first president of the

Maryland Cued Speech Association (holding the position for 5 years), and am

currently the director of CueCamp Friendship. Even though I don't have a

deaf child of my own, CS has enriched my life in so many ways.

 

What county do you live in? Montgomery County

 

Contact info: amycues@aol.com

301-718-8717 (V/TTY, voice messages only)