Helen Adams Keller was an American author, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer. Born in West Tuscumbia, Alabama, she lost her sight and hearing after a bout of illness at the age of nineteen months. She then communicated primarily using home signs until the age of seven when she met her first teacher and life-long companion Anne Sullivan, who taught her language, including reading and writing; Sullivan's first lessons involved spelling words on Keller's hand to show her the names of objects around her. She also learned how to speak and to understand other people's speech using the Tadoma method. After an education at both specialist and mainstream schools, she attended Radcliffe College of Harvard University and became the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. She worked for the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) from 1924 until 1968, during which time she toured the United States and traveled to 39 countries around the globe advocating for those with vision loss.
Perkins School for the Blind, in Watertown, Massachusetts, was founded in 1829 and is the oldest school for the blind in the United States. It has also been known as the Perkins Institution for the Blind.
Deafblindness is the condition of little or no useful hearing and little or no useful sight. There are different degrees of vision loss and auditory loss within each individual, thus making the deafblind community unique with many types of deafblindness involved. Because of this diversity, each deafblind individual's needs regarding lifestyle, communication, education, and work need to be addressed based on their degree of dual-modality deprivation in order to improve their ability to live independently. In 1994, it was estimated that roughly 35,000–40,000 United States residents are medically deafblind. Helen Keller was a well-known example of a deafblind individual.
Tactile signing is a common means of communication used by people with deafblindness. It is based on a sign language or another system of manual communication.
Laura Dewey Lynn Bridgman is known as the first deaf-blind American child to gain a significant education in the English language, fifty years before the more famous Helen Keller. Bridgman was left deaf-blind at the age of two after contracting scarlet fever. She was educated at the Perkins Institution for the Blind where, under the direction of Samuel Gridley Howe, she learned to read and communicate using Braille and the manual alphabet developed by Charles-Michel de l'Épée.
Pineland Farms is a 5,000-acre farm and recreational property in the eastern part of New Gloucester, Maine. It is partly on the site of the former Pineland Hospital and Training Center.
Ragnhild Tollefsen Kåta was the first deafblind person in Norway who received proper schooling. Despite being deafblind, she learned to talk. The story of her success was an inspiration to Helen Keller.
Diane Joan Schuur, nicknamed "Deedles", is an American jazz singer and pianist. As of 2015, Schuur had released 23 albums, and had extended her jazz repertoire to include essences of Latin, gospel, pop and country music. Her most successful album is Diane Schuur & the Count Basie Orchestra, which remained number one on the Billboard Jazz Charts for 33 weeks. She won Grammy Awards for best female jazz vocal performance in both 1986 and 1987 and has had three other Grammy nominations.
The California School for the Blind is a public educational institution for blind children, K-12, located in Fremont, California. Its campus is located next to the California School for the Deaf.
The Oregon School for the Blind (OSB), was a state-run public school in Salem, Oregon, United States, serving blind and vision impaired students of kindergarten through high school grades through residential, day school, and part-time enrollment programs. Opened in 1873, the school was operated by the Oregon Department of Education. The school's closure in 2009 had been the culmination of several years of contentious debate that continued after the closure when lawsuits were filed concerning the sale of the campus.
Alfred Langdon Elwyn was a nonpracticing physician, an author, a philanthropist and a pioneer in the training and care of mentally disabled in the US. In addition, Elwyn was one of the founding officers of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind in 1833, and later served as the Institution's president. Elwyn also headed a Pennsylvania agricultural society and farm school. In addition, Elwyn was president of a society for prevention of cruelty to animals. He served as treasurer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science between 1849 and 1870. He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1844.
Elwyn is a care facility in Elwyn, Pennsylvania, in Middletown Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania for the mentally disabled and individuals suffering from age-related mental disabilities. Elwyn, established in 1852, offers education, rehabilitation, and employment options, child welfare services, assisted living, respite care, campus and community therapeutic residential programs, and other supports for daily living. Elwyn has satellite operations in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, as well as programs in California.
The Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind (CSDB) is a K-12 residential school, located on Knob Hill, one mile (1.6 km) east of downtown Colorado Springs, Colorado, near the famous laboratory of Nikola Tesla. The school was founded in 1874 as The Colorado Institute for the Education of Mutes by Jonathan R. Kennedy, who had previously been steward at the Kansas State School For the Deaf. The school began in a rented house in downtown Colorado Springs with seven students, three of whom were Kennedy's own children. One of his children, Emma, later married another student, Frank H. Chaney, and they became the parents of the actor Lon Chaney.
Linden Lodge School for the Blind is a specialist sensory and physical college located in Wimbledon, South London. It educates visually impaired children aged between two and nineteen, including those who are multi-disabled visually impaired.
Sophia Kindrick Alcorn was an educator best known for inventing the Tadoma method of communication with people who are deaf and blind. She was a strong advocate for the rights of people with disabilities and upon retiring from her long career in teaching, she worked with the American Foundation for the Blind.
The Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind (AIDB) is a school for people with blindness and/or deafness operated by the U.S. state of Alabama in the city of Talladega. The current institution includes the Alabama School for the Deaf, the Alabama School for the Blind, and the Helen Keller School, named for Alabamian Helen Keller, which serves children who are both deaf and blind. The E. H. Gentry Technical Facility provides vocational training for older students, and the institution offers employment to graduates through its Alabama Industries for the Blind workshops in Talladega and Birmingham. The AIDB has regional centers in Birmingham, Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, Montgomery, Mobile, Dothan, Auburn, and Tuscumbia. The AIDB currently serves nearly 24,500 residents from all 67 counties of the state.
Jamison Ross is an American jazz drummer and vocalist. He is the winner of the 2012 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Drums Competition. Ross released his debut album Jamison on Concord Jazz on June 23, 2015. His sophomore album, All For One, was released on January 26, 2018.
Haben Girma is an American disability rights advocate, and the first deafblind graduate of Harvard Law School.
The Washington School for the Deaf (WSD) is a school for deaf children located in Vancouver, Washington, in the United States. The school educates children from all over Washington.
Helen May Martin was an American pianist. Helen Keller called Martin "the most accomplished deaf and blind person in the world."
