A Unique Perspective On Sign Language - Helen Keller

Helen Keller was a deaf and blind little girl who lived in Alabama in the late 1800's. Helen and her Teacher, Annie Sullivan, were quite famous in the early and middle parts of the twentieth century.

Around 1902, Annie, who was twenty years old and visually impaired herself, was hired by the Kellers to see if Helen could be taught. She came to live in the Kellers' home. At that time, Helen was more like a wild animal than a child: destructive, willful, unmanageable, and entirely unable to communicate. Annie, however, saw the spark of an agile mind and a quick intelligence in Helen.

Annie decided that she needed to remove Helen from the family in order to be free of family distractions and to have Helen focused only on Annie's input. Helen and Annie moved to a small cottage on the Keller property. In just a few weeks, by constantly fingerspelling to Helen, Annie was able to help her make the connection between words and the things they represent. This was the breakthrough that reopened the world to Helen.

What many people don't know is that Helen Keller was born sighted and hearing. She was a healthy and inquisitive baby until she was eighteen months old. She became ill with a high fever which robbed her of her sight and her hearing. As anyone who has been acquainted with an eighteen-month-old knows, they understand quite a lot of what they hear, and many of them are very verbal. So, by the time Helen lost her hearing she already had a good basis of language development. Undoubtedly this was a great advantage to her in her later pursuits.

Helen became famous for her astonishing achievements despite her challenges. She graduated from college, traveled the world with her beloved Teacher, was a friend of Presidents, and even learned to speak and to address large audiences, although she never heard her own voice.

Sign language brought Helen Keller out of the isolation her deafness and blindness had caused. It made possible a life of success, fame and fulfillment for her and for her Teacher, Annie Sullivan. Before the Kellers found Annie, they had sadly considered sending Helen to an "asylum." The Kellers had visited one or two of these places as well. Back around 1900, asylums were horrific places, and were 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. Neither Annie nor Helen had any other prospects. There were no schools that could hendle Helen, and Annie had no other job offers. If sign language had not existed, their lives would have turned out quite differently.