Summary

The web content discusses the impact of Helen Keller's life on the author, who also faces disabilities, and highlights Keller's achievements as an inspiration for overcoming personal challenges.

Abstract

The article, titled "Women’s History Month: Helen Keller," reflects on the profound influence Helen Keller had on the author, particularly in dealing with the author's own disability, Usher Syndrome. It recounts the author's first encounter with Keller's story through the 1979 film "The Miracle Worker," and how the author's appreciation for Keller's struggles and triumphs deepened after their own diagnosis. The piece details the author's journey with hearing impairment and the eventual diagnosis of Usher Syndrome, which involves the loss of both vision and hearing. Parallels are drawn between the author's experiences and Keller's, emphasizing the importance of communication methods such as tactile signing and fingerspelling. The article concludes by celebrating Keller's accomplishments, including being the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree and her advocacy work through Helen Keller International, serving as a beacon of inspiration for the author and others facing disabilities.

Opinions

The author identifies with Helen Keller's challenges and finds motivation in her achievements.
Keller's ability to communicate through fingerspelling, braille, typing, and speech is seen as particularly remarkable and influential.
The author acknowledges the difficulty of their own diagnosis and the subsequent impact on their life, but views Keller's success as a testament to the potential for personal growth and achievement despite disabilities.
Helen Keller is presented as a personal hero to the author, someone who overcame significant obstacles and set a precedent for what is possible.
The author expresses a sense of responsibility to strive for their own passions and dreams, inspired by Keller's legacy.

Women’s History Month: Helen Keller

Helen Keller played an instrumental role in how I dealt with my own disability

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. — Helen Keller

Since March is Women’s History Month, I plan to look at a few women who have impacted my life.

The first one is Helen Keller.

My first memory of Helen Keller was through a 1979 film, The Miracle Worker (Helen was played by Melissa Gilbert).

I was probably around ten or so when I first saw this movie. And being hearing impaired, I could somewhat relate to Helen Keller.

It wasn’t until after I was diagnosed with Usher Syndrome did I truly appreciate her struggles and triumphs.

Usher Syndrome, in a nutshell, is a hereditary disease that involves the progressive loss of vision as well as hearing.

I was an unruly child. Rude. Didn’t obey or follow rules. My speech development was very poor. My parents spent two years taking me to various specialists who all seemed to think I had a behavioral or psychological problem (all these occurred between 1974–1976 in rural upstate New York).

It wasn’t until I began Kindergarten that my teacher noticed the true reason and recommended my parents take me to an audiologist where I was finally diagnosed with moderate hearing loss (at least 65% loss in both ears). I was fitted with hearing aids and spent two years in speech therapy.

In my late teens and early twenties, I began to have increasing difficulty getting around in the dark. I was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa at the age of twenty-one. A few months later, after seeing a specialist at the Eye & Ear Infirmary in Boston, my diagnosis was amended to Usher Syndrome.

Helen Keller was born a normal baby who could hear and see. At nineteen months, she was stricken with either Scarlett Fever or Meningitis which robbed her of both sight and hearing.

Helen was kept out of school since she was nearly impossible to control and impossible to teach. It wasn’t until she was seven that Anne Sullivan was hired to be her teacher. Through Anne, Helen learned a language in which she was finally able to communicate with the world around her.

This language I believe was a precursor to what’s now called tactile signing or tactile fingerspelling which uses the American Sign Language with touches (generally via hands).

Image from https://www.ndcs.org.uk/information-and-support/language-and-communication/sign-language/tactile-signing/

By the time she attended college, Helen had mastered other ways of communicating besides fingerspelling: “listening” to people by touching their lips, braille, and typing. She’d also learned to speak.

In 1904, she became the first deaf-blind person to graduate from college receiving her Bachelor of Arts from Radcliff College in Cambridge.

It was during her Junior year at Radcliff she wrote her autobiography, The Story of My Life.

Helen spent her life traveling and speaking as well as publishing several books and articles. In 1915, she and George Kessler founded Helen Keller International with the mission to save the sight and lives of the vulnerable and disadvantaged.

She’s my inspiration whenever I get down on myself and my own “lack” of abilities. If she could do all that she did, I have absolutely no reason not to strive for my passion and dreams.