Helen Keller — How a Deaf and Blind Girl Talks

1896

The hundreds of personal friends of Helen Keller, the totally blind and totally deaf girl, whose development and whose attainments are nothing short of marvelous, and the tens of thousands who have become interested in her will be pleased to learn of the remarkable progress she has been making within the last year.

Not only does she use her voice constantly in communicating with those about her, but she has reached that state where those who wish to talk with her speak to her as they would to any one in full possession of all his senses.

Miss Keller no longer uses her fingers to talk to others. She uses them now in conversation simply to listen to others who speak to her. By placing her fingers on the lips and throat of those who are talking to her she not only almost instantly "hears" words that are difficult to pronounce clearly but she is also enabled to detect the various shadings of vowel sounds that many persons even with a keenly developed ear, cannot pronounce, after a teacher. — Demorest's Magazine.