R. Orin Cornett

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R. Orin Cornett (1913 – 2002) was an American physicist, born in Driftwood, Oklahoma. Cornett received his Ph.D. in physics and applied mathematics from the University of Texas. In 1965 he began working as the Vice President of Long-Range Planning at Gallaudet College (now Gallaudet University). While working at Gallaudet (a university predominantly attended by deaf students), he discovered that many deaf adults fail to achieve literacy at a native-level. To solve this problem, he devised a phonemic system to render English visually rather than acoustically. He named his system Cued Speech and it is used around the world.