Helen Keller: A Life Lived as a DeafBlind Person

For many, when they hear of Helen Keller, the first image that comes to mind is the moment she grasped the concept of the word "water" through the sensation of water touching her hand. Yet, that event occurred when she was only seven years old, and she lived for another eight decades.

Born in Alabama in 1880, Keller lost both her sight and hearing following a severe illness at the age of nineteen months.

In 1887, her teacher Anne Sullivan arrived and taught her words by tracing letters onto her palm, a method known as the tactile fingerspelling method. Keller subsequently utilized a combination of fingerspelling, Braille, and the Tadoma method, which involves reading the vibrations of a speaker's lips and throat.

Furthermore, in 1904, she graduated from Radcliffe College, becoming the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor's degree.

However, because the film “The Miracle Worker” focused on her childhood, Keller's activities as an adult are not widely known.

In fact, Keller wrote and spoke out in support of women's suffrage, workers' rights, and peace, and participated in the founding of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 1920. Yet, it is said that when she expressed radical views, some press that had previously praised her began to dismiss her, saying her disability impaired her judgment.

Viewing Keller from a DeafBlind perspective means remembering her not merely as a "miracle girl who overcame disability," but as a citizen who forged her own methods of communication and spoke out on social issues. Indeed, even today, many DeafBlind individuals continue to use tactile ASL, reading sign language by placing their hands over the signer’s hands.