When and how did helen keller learn to speak?
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Answer:
Keller never spoke very clearly. Annie Sullivan could understand her, and so, apparently, could a few close friends and family members, so it was not fraudulent to say she could speak, but her speech was not great. When she spoke in public, Sullivan usually had to repeat everything she said.
Now, this is actually really a typical experience for a number of Deaf Americans, including those raised orally (and yes, even people given Cochlear Implants as babies). After being promised normal speech, and being able to fit seamlessly into the hearing world, they find that only their family members and teachers can understand their speech. And likewise, they can lipread only very familiar people.
I don’t want to put down Helen Keller’s accomplishments— she clearly had a lot of native intelligence. But she was also a mouthpiece for two agencies, the Volta Bureau (now the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf, and the American Foundation for the Blind, which spend a lot of time trying to solicit money by telling people that Deaf or Blind people lead terrible lives because of their “afflictions.” The National [US] Federation OF the Blind (which doesn’t have much of an opinion of Keller, any more than the National [US] Association OF the Deaf does) has always been quick to point out that they are an organization OF the blind, while the AFB is an organization FOR the blind, and that makes a huge difference.
So Keller had to learn everything through fingerspelling. She never had any exposure to the Deaf community. She was around other blind people, but they were always hearing blind people.
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