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Almost certainly, you’ve heard about Helen Keller. She was a deaf and blind woman who, by persistence and dedication, was able to overcome her handicapsand led a full and successfullife. Perhaps you have seen the acclaimed play “The Miracle Worker,” or one of the several film versions of the play.
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Helen and her Teacher, Annie Sullivan, were very famous in the early and middle decades of the past century. Around 1902, Annie, twenty years old and herself partially blind, came to live with the the Keller family just before Helen’s seventh birthday, in a last-ditch attempt to discoverif there was any possibility of teaching Helen. At that time, Helen wasmore like a wild animal than a child: destructive, willful, unmanageable, and completely unable to communicate. However, Anniedetected the indications of an agile mind and a quick intelligence in Helen. By isolating Annie from her family and immersing her in a flood of fingerspelling, within a few weeks’time Annie penetrated Helen’s wall of ignorance of the world around her and taught her that every thing has a name. This was the breakthrough that opened the world to Helen.
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Helen became famous worldwide in recognition of her astonishing achievements in spite of her challenges. She attended, and graduated from , college; she traveled throughout the world with Annie, her beloved Teacher; she became a friend of Presidents. She even learned to speak and to address large audiences, although she was unable to hear the sound of her own voice.
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What is not generally known is that Helen Keller was born with hearing and eyesight. She was a “normal” baby until the age of approximately eighteen months. She then contracted a high fever which left her totally blind and deaf. As anyone who has been in the company of an eighteen-month-old knows, they understand much of what they hear, and many of them are very verbal. So, by the time Helen lost her hearing, she already had a good foundation of language development. This undoubtedly served her well in her later endeavors.
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I think I have a unique perspective on sign language and kids. I had the privilege of performing the role of Annie Sullivan, Helen’s teacher,in “The Miracle Worker” for more than ten years as part of an educational theatrical program. For four of those years, while my daughter was in third through sixth grade, she played the role of Helen with me. It was very exciting to share starring roles onstage with my own child!
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Both of my children are sighted and hearing. Early on, I taught them fingerspelling and many of the formal signs, and observed benefits from those skills in their linguistic and social development and in their school progress. However, the the one aspect that impressed me most of all during this remarkable time with my daughter was the knowledge that sign language made possible a life of fulfillment, success and fame for Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan. Before Annie came to the Kellers, the family had regretfully contemplated “putting Helen away” in an “asylum,” and had even visited a few of them. Back around 1900, asylums were horrific places, and certainly no place for a handicapped child. Annie was just graduating from the Perkins School for the Blind at the time, and had no other prospects for her own future. Annie and Helen were literally each other’s last and only chance. They were made for each other. How differently their lives would have turned out, had it not been for sign language!
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Tidbit of the week: When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, what he was really trying to invent was a hearing aid. His wife was deaf.
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Link: http://signlanguageforchildren.com
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