Spatial analysis of hand positions in French cued speech (LfPC)

Abstract

Speech production relies on both acoustic and visual cues. While lip movements convey valuable information, many phonemes remain visually ambiguous. Cued Speech is a visual coding system that complements lipreading by combining mouth shapes with hand cues—specific handshapes and positions around the face—that encode consonants and vowels. It provides full visual access to spoken language and supports phonological awareness, literacy development, and oral language acquisition in deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals. This study investigates the spatial distribution of vowel-related hand positions in French Cued Speech (LfPC), which uses eight handshapes for consonants and five distinct positions for vowels.