Cued speech as a visual gestural system representing English was first developed 30 years ago. The fact that the first generation of cued speech users who are in their thirties and mid-twenties tend to congregate with other cues and use cued speech after high school makes one wonder if there is a change in the way cued speech is used. Invented signed communication systems are often replaced with ASL after deaf children leave high school but cued speech seem to remain strong among its users. I propose a study of the linguistic properties and nativization of cued speech. My preliminary studies show that Deaf adult cuers use emphatic stress by using both hands simultaneously, use role shifting by alternating the hands for each 'speaker', and use non-manual markers comparable to non-manual markers used in signed languages. This proposal addresses whether or not the structural change of cued speech is a direct result of nativization.
