A Girl Named Helen

• Changes
• Learning to Communicate
• A Teacher Arrives
• A New World Opens
• Special Invitations
• College Dreams
• A Life of Accomplishment
• A Girl Named Carly

Changes

Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27th, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Her parents, Arthur and Kate Keller, loved her very much. She was a fun and beautiful baby. She was very smart. By six months, Helen could say a few words such as tea, and wah-wah, which meant water. She started to walk at age one.

When Helen was about a year and a half old, she got a very high fever. The doctor wasn’t sure what was wrong with her, and he called her sickness “brain fever.” For several days her family worried she would die. but then her fever went away.

Later Helen’s mother passed her hands in front of Helen’s face. Helen just stared straight ahead, it didn’t seem like she could see anything. When the bell rang for dinner, Helen couldn’t hear the sound. Not only was Helen blind, she was deaf, too. Helen’s parents took her to see a doctor, but he said there was nothing he could do to help. Helen Keller’s world was now dark and silent.

Learning to Communicate

Most children learn to speak by listening and watching others talk. Helen could not listen or watch. Therefore, she couldn’t speak. But that didn’t stop Helen from exploring and noticing the world around her. She would follow her mother around wherever she went by holding onto her skirts. She would sniff the air for different smells. She felt vibrations when people moved. In those days, there weren’t any schools for deaf or blind children. But Helen slowly began to figure out her own ways to communicate.

When she pulled somebody it meant for them to come. When she pushed someone it meant to go. But she still couldn’t always express herself in a way that was easy for others to understand. She couldn’t communicate her thoughts or feelings. And when she couldn’t communicate, she’d get angry. Helen would kick and scream, and it was hard for her parents to control her.

When Helen was under control, she loved to explore her garden. She learned to tell plants apart by smell and feel. She spent a lot of time with her dog, Belle. Helen even tried teaching Belle her signs, but Belle never caught on. She was more interested in chasing birds.

When Helen was five, she got a big surprise: a sister named Mildred! Helen was jealous of the attention her sister got. One day she tipped over the cradle while Mildred was in it. Luckily, Mildred wasn’t hurt. But it was clear that Helen’s anger could hurt herself and others. Her parents felt sure she would become less frustrated if she learned how to communicate better.

In Washington D.C., the Kellers met with Dr. Alexander Graham Bell. When Helen walked into Dr. Bell’s office she climbed right up onto the doctor’s lap! He suggested that the Kellers write to the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston, Massachusetts, and ask if they had a teacher for Helen.

A Teacher Arrives

On March 3rd, 1887, six-year-old Helen was outside her porch when she heard the vibrations of a horse-drawn carriage arriving. The carriage stopped and Helen expected her mother. But instead she felt a stranger. Helen didn’t like strangers, but she was curious. Who was this new person?

It was Anne Sullivan, a twenty-year-old recent graduate of the Perkins Institute. She would live with the Kellers as Helen’s teacher. The next morning as Helen helped Anne unpack her bags, Helen found a doll. Anne took Helen’s hand and spelled out the letters for the word doll on her palm. Helen thought the doll belonged to her now. When Anne took back the doll, Helen had a temper tantrum. Anne tried to calm her down, but Helen grew more and more angry. Helen and her teacher were not off to a good start.

Helen’s temper tantrums continued. When Helen tried to eat food from Anne’s plate, Anne stopped her, and then Helen became furious. She kicked and screamed, and refused to use a spoon to eat her food. Everything with Helen was a battle. The Kellers tried to help, but Anne realized they were enabling her poor behavior. The best thing to do was to get Helen away from her family. Anne and Helen would live in a cottage that was near the main house.

Although they were alone, things between them did not get better. The two had fights every day about tasks like getting dressed and eating. But Anne never gave up trying to teach Helen. One day, Anne took Helen outside to the water pump. Anne put one of Helen’s hands under the cold water and spelled out the letters for the word water on her other palm. W-A-T-E-R. Suddenly, Helen understood.

A thrill ran through Helen’s body. Anne spelled out a lot of other words into Helen’s hand that day, too, including the word teacher. For the first time, Helen felt hope. Her dark world was starting to brighten.

A New World Opens

Once Helen learned the alphabet, she could communicate with her parents. Anne spelled what her parents said into Helen’s hand. Helen would spell but she wanted to say back. Anne would use the world outside as Helen’s classroom. They studied, and Helen learned what happened when a seed was planted in the ground by feeling it grow a little bit every day.

By the summer of 1887, Anne gave Helen a few pieces of cardboard with letters of the alphabet written in raised lettering. Helen touched the words and learned what they said. Anne also taught Helen how to write with a grooved wooden writing board. A piece of paper was placed over the board and Helen used the grooves to guide her pencil and form letters.

Months after Helen learned the alphabet, she began learning to read using the system for the blind called Braille. Anne was proud of her student. She wrote letters to the director of the Perkins Institute about Helen’s progress. Her letters eventually led to stories about Helen in the newspapers. Helen was slowly becoming famous.

Special Invitations

In May 1888, seven-year-old Helen received an invitation to visit the White House to meet President Grover Cleveland. President Cleveland was amazed at what Helen had accomplished. Helen, a deaf and blind young girl, had shown the world how strong and smart she was. And there was more to come.

After visiting the president, Helen and Anne took a train to the Perkins Institute. While there, Helen was invited to speak at graduation. Many important people were there. Helen spelled a poem into Anne’s hand, and Anne spoke the poem aloud. The audience was awestruck and Helen felt very proud.

In October, Helen returned to Perkins as a student. Helen studied music, clay modeling, and basket weaving. Although Helen could read and write, she still couldn’t talk. When Helen was nine, Anne found a teacher in Boston to help. Helen learned how lips moved when someone talked by touching her new teacher’s mouth. She would practice and practice but no sound came out. One day Helen opened her mouth and said, “It is warm.” Her words were not clear, and only the speech teacher and Anne could understand her, but she was speaking. Although Helen would never learn to speak clearly, she had accomplished yet another goal.

College Dreams

After studying in Boston, fourteen-year-old Helen went to a New York City school for deaf children. Of course, Anne went with her. Helen’s classes included lip reading, speech, math, French, and German. She went on field trips, too. Helen went to the Statue of Liberty where she climbed to the top!

Living in New York City expanded Helen’s world. She set a new goal for herself: to go to college. At that time, very few women went to college. And there had never been a deaf and blind woman to finish college. But that didn’t discourage Helen.

In 1896, she enrolled in the Cambridge School for Young Ladies. This school was for the hearing as well. Helen had to work extra hard to keep up with her studies, and all the studying made her weak and tired. Helen’s mother thought Anne was pushing her too hard, so maybe it was time to separate them. Anne and Helen were both very upset at that idea. In the end, Anne stayed.

At last, Helen’s dream was coming true. She was accepted to Radcliffe, a prestigious women’s college.

Radcliffe was hard. Anne went to classes with Helen and spelled into her hand as the teachers spoke. When she wasn’t studying, Helen wrote down stories of her life. An editor from a magazine offered Helen $3,000 to publish them, and she agreed. Eventually a teacher at Harvard, John Macy, offered to put the stories in a book. Helen’s book, The Story of My Life, was published in 1903.

In 1904, Helen graduated with honors. Newspapers around the world wrote about Helen Keller: the first blind and deaf person to graduate from an American College.

A Life of Accomplishment

After college, Helen continued to amaze the world. In 1913, she gave a public speech for the first time. When Helen got onto the stage, she panicked. She forgot how to make the words come out properly. At the end of the speech, Helen ran off the stage in tears. She felt like a failure, and she thought the audience didn’t like her. But they did. She continued to give speeches for the next fifty years.

Helen gave speeches about her life. She explained the challenges blind and deaf people faced. With Anne, Helen traveled all over the U.S., and even to Europe and Japan, as an advocate for people with disabilities. She also marched for women suffrage.

Helen never let any obstacle stop her. The same determination that made her throw tantrums of frustration when she was a child gave her the strength to pursue education and fight for others.

On June 1st, 1968, Helen Keller died. The world will never forget this brave, smart, and determined woman.

A Girl Named Carly

There are a lot of young girls helping to make positive changes in our world today, just like Helen Keller did. Carly Fleischmann is one of those girls.

When Carly Fleischmann was a toddler, her parents noticed that she was not keeping up with her twin sister. When she was two, they found out why: Carly is autistic and has oral-motor apraxia, which makes her unable to speak.

As a young child, Carly got a lot of therapy. She learned to walk, but she still could not speak. Frustrated, Carly would often have temper tantrums. Some people suggested that Carly be sent to a group home. But her parents refused. Her father said that when he looked into her eyes, he could see that she was smart.

Carly really wanted to find her voice, but how? When she was 10, Carly began typing what she wanted to say on a keyboard. It was hard for Carly to type, since she had trouble using her fingers. At first all she could get out were one-word sentences. But Carly did not give up until she was able to communicate through typing.

Today, Carly has a successful Internet talk show called Speechless with Carly Fleischmann. She interviews celebrities like Channing Tatum. She is the very first nonverbal celebrity talk show host!

Carly is also an advocate for people with autism. She wants others to understand that all autistic people aren’t the same. Carly said, “I am autistic but that is not who I am. Take the time to know me, before you judge me.”