R. Orin Cornett

R. Orin Cornett (1913 – 2002) was an American physicist, educational admininstrator and inventor of a system known as Cued Speech.

Biography

Cornett was born in Driftwood, Oklahoma, an unincorporated town located in Alfalfa County. He earned a BS in Mathematics from Oklahoma Baptist University in 1934, followed by an MS from the University of Oklahoma in 1937. Cornett received his Ph.D. in physics and applied mathematics from the University of Texas in 1940. Between 1935 and 1945, Cornett taught physics, mathematics, and electronics at Oklahoma Baptist University, Penn State University, and Harvard University.

In 1959, Cornett became the Director of the Division of Higher Education at the U.S. Office of Education. While in that office he reviewed Gallaudet’s funding. In the process, he was appalled to learn that most deaf persons have below grade level reading skills and fail to achieve literacy at a native-level. In 1965, Cornett began working as the Vice President of Long-Range Planning at Gallaudet College (now Gallaudet University). To solve this issue of deaf literacy, he devised a phonemic system to render English visually rather than acoustically. Cornett named his system Cued Speech.

The invention of Cued Speech dramatically changed the direction of deaf education, by increasing language skills, raising standards, increasing literacy levels among the families with deaf children who used it. While educators were skeptical of the invention in its early years, extensive studies by prominent researchers have borne out Cornett’s initial objectives. It is widely believed that Cornett’s invention has shattered the paradigm of deaf education because Cued Speech has so drastically improved the lives of the people who use it.

From 1975 to 1984, he became Research Professor and director of Cued Speech Programs. From 1981 to 1983, he was also Chairman of the Center for Studies in Language and Communication at Gallaudet. He had adapted Cued Speech to all but four of the 67 languages and major dialects in which it is available. When he retired in 1984, Gallaudet University awarded him professor emeritus status.

He wrote and published hundreds of articles and several books on mathematics, physics, higher education, deaf education, Cued Speech and other subjects as well as serving as editor of several publications, including the Cued Speech Resource Book for Parents, a guidebook for parents.

Recognition

Among Cornett’s achievements are three honorary doctorates, the 1963 Award for Outstanding Alumni Achievement from Oklahoma Baptist University, the Nitchie Award in Human Communications from the New York League for the Hard of Hearing in 1988, and the Distinguished Service Award of the National Council on Communication Disorders in 1992.

Cornett has been listed in the Marquis Who’s Who in America continuously since 1956, and is also in Who’s Who in the World, Who Knows and What, American Men of Science, The Blue Book: Leaders of the English-Speaking World and other biographical dictionaries.

External links

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