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Role of Visual Speech Cues (Cued Speech) in Foreign Language Learning by Hearing School-Age Children
In this study, we aimed to determine the role of visual speech cues in the process of foreign language learning by hearing school-age children. Our experiments used Cued Speech, a method designed for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. We expected that the principles of the method might also be beneficial for people with normal hearing because they may help distinguish the sounds of foreign speech that are difficult to hear. This study mainly focused on the effects of speech perception. We tested 126 Polish junior high school students (66 girls and 60 boys) with a normal range of phonemic hearing and language aptitude. We envisaged that foreign language learners using visual speech cues would achieve a higher score on a test of foreign language than learners who had studied the language in the traditional manner. We also formulated a hypothesis concerning the interaction of training type and training conditions on the effectiveness of foreign language learning: that the difference in the effects of foreign language learning between participants who received visual or executive training and typical training would be more significant in the presence of auditory distractors than in their absence. We observed interactions between conditions and types of training for speech sound identification. Under conditions of auditory distraction, foreign language learners using Cued Speech scored significantly higher than learners who had traditional training.