Hellen Keller and her deafness

Secretblend said:
True.

However I was speaking in everyday life with family and friends and work.

Also how often would you say that deafs had others to communicate with in the past?

I'm sure today is one of best times for deafs in being able to communicate with other deafs. I doubt it was like that in general before 1900's.
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You do realize from the time Clerc arrived in America to about 1860s, it was considered as the "Golden Era of the Deaf"?

People nowadays are trying to get the second era to occur.
 
I read that Hellen said if she had to blind or deaf , she would rather be blind!
I think I would rather be deaf !
 
CJB said:
I can sign and finger spell the same phrase or concept and signing it takes a fraction of the time. For me it's just a question of speed. Having signs that represent words and phrases is bound to be more efficient than having signs that represent letters. Even if Helen Keller and Laura Bridgman achieved lightning speed, how fast could other people finger spell to them?
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Consider that Bridgman lived almost all her life in the school, dying of old age there, and that she had one teacher or caretaker assigned to her at all times, they were experienced and could spell and exchange ideas with her very quickly. She taught quite a few of the blind students to communicate with her too, and is famous for giving up in disgust or not even starting to teach them if she thought they had stiff hands.

Keller always lived with Annie Sullivan and then her replacement and they conveyed information to her. If someone wanted to say something to Keller, it went through her companion.
 
Bottesini said:
Consider that Bridgman lived almost all her life in the school, dying of old age there, and that she had one teacher or caretaker assigned to her at all times, they were experienced and could spell and exchange ideas with her very quickly. She taught quite a few of the blind students to communicate with her too, and is famous for giving up in disgust or not even starting to teach them if she thought they had stiff hands.

Keller always lived with Annie Sullivan and then her replacement and they conveyed information to her. If someone wanted to say something to Keller, it went through her companion.
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Sounds like finger spelling worked for them. Definitely not for me, though. :giggle:
 
souggy said:
You do realize from the time Clerc arrived in America to about 1860s, it was considered as the "Golden Era of the Deaf"?

People nowadays are trying to get the second era to occur.
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No, I did not realize that. I would have to look into that.
 
Helen Keller was a major oralist. She advocated teaching English and finger spelling it out. She believed the deafblind should go to schools for the blind
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Yes. It's possible she was blind-hoh, rather then deaf-blind. We really don't know how much sight she had, vs how much hearing she had. Plus she was educated at a school for the BLIND. Blind culture is very sound dependant.....(like the way our culture is very visual)
And yes, a lot of what she thought was prolly influenced by the thinking of her era.
Maybe if she'd grown up nowadays, and gotten an education at a school for the deaf, she would have thought differently.
 
deafdyke said:
Yes. It's possible she was blind-hoh, rather then deaf-blind. We really don't know how much sight she had, vs how much hearing she had. Plus she was educated at a school for the BLIND. Blind culture is very sound dependant.....(like the way our culture is very visual)
And yes, a lot of what she thought was prolly influenced by the thinking of her era.
Maybe if she'd grown up nowadays, and gotten an education at a school for the deaf, she would have thought differently.
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When My son and I watched a video of her, and I was listening to it (with my CI), I have no idea what she said, but she does have a deaf voice and sound very much like someone who can't hear at all. Even my son thinks so. I had to talk to him about it (the attitude and everything) because he was shocked someone would sound like that. I think she is deaf.
 
I spoke to a deaf historian yesterday. He wasn't surprised Helen Keller said those things about deafness. According to him, Helen Keller also wrote or said once that she wasn't deaf, but she was "not hearing". Makes one wonder who Helen Keller really was. She was perhaps a product of that era, too. Milano, AG Bell, oralism etc.
 
flip said:
In the latest long long CI thread, someone posted a quatation of Helen Keller, where she confessed that deafness was a burden. I was intrigued by this a found more quotes at wikiquote.org. See for yourself below. As I know little about Helen Keller, I wonder:

1. Are they telling us hard facts about deafness?

2. Are they telling us about the fate of Helen Keller, and less deafness in general?

3. Are they misquotations?

"The problems of deafness are deeper and more complex, if not more important, than those of blindness. Deafness is a much worse misfortune. For it means the loss of the most vital stimulus — the sound of the voice that brings language, sets thoughts astir and keeps us in the intellectual company of man."

"Blindness cuts us off from things, but deafness cuts us off from people."

Helen Keller - Wikiquote

and

"Hearing is the soul of knowledge and information of a high order. To be cut off from hearing is to be isolated indeed."

FAQ: Helen Keller quotes
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I love these quotes-hits the nail on the head for me.
 
A said:
When My son and I watched a video of her, and I was listening to it (with my CI), I have no idea what she said, but she does have a deaf voice and sound very much like someone who can't hear at all. Even my son thinks so. I had to talk to him about it (the attitude and everything) because he was shocked someone would sound like that. I think she is deaf.
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You can't really predict how deaf someone is from their speech skills, though. Some totally deaf people have perfect or near perfect speech, some HH people have a very strong deaf voice...
 
true. I don't think they had hearing aids in those days. So who knows?
 
A said:
true. But I don't think they had hearing aids in those days. So who knows?
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I don't know. :giggle: I imagine the best guesses could be made from reading her personal accounts. Then again from reading her essays nothing indicated to me that she had residual hearing. It's hard to know cause she had no frame of comparison and none of us have any frame of comparison.
 
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