Local speech educator achieves leadership honor
The National Cued Speech Association recently presented Polly Earl of Fort Fairfield with the Cueing Educator Award. This award is given to people for excellence and innovative leadership in promoting the use of cued speech in education.
Contributed photo
Polly Earl of Fort Fairfield, speech/language pathologist, accepts the National Cued Speech Association’s 2016 Educator Award from Dr. Daniel Koo, professor at Gallaudet University during the association’s meeting in Virginia.
Cued speech is a mode of communication that provides full access to the spoken language for children who are deaf, and helps enable parents to communicate better with children who have hearing impairments.
Earl has worked with children who are deaf and hard of hearing for 37 years, serving as a speech/language pathologist, teacher and special education consultant.
She first heard Dr. R. Orin Cornett, inventor of cued speech, speak on the topic in 1978 at the University of Maine. Since then she has supported the use of cued speech with children and adults to provide clear and consistent access to spoken languages.
She has provided instruction and support to students, families, cued language transliterators and other professionals around the country.
Earl received her doctorate in special education in 2006. Her dissertation provided evidence that infants can acquire more than one cued language simultaneously if provided with good cueing models.
She currently works as an outreach consultant for the Maine Education Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Fort Fairfield and is adjunct faculty at the University of Maine at Presque Isle. An NCSA-certified instructor, she has served on the NCSA board for 24 years and is currently chair of the Academic Advisory Council.
