How Helen Keller Learned to Talk.

Helen Keller and Her teacher Anne Macy Sullivan explain how Helen learned to speak. Year:1928. TRANSCRIPT: Anne Sullivan speaking: "When I first saw Helen Keller, She was six years and eight months old.She had been blind and deaf and mute since her eighteenth month as a result of an illness.She had no way of communicating with those around her except for a few imitative signs that she had made for herself. A push meant go and a pull meant come and so on. She had observed that we did not use the hands when we were talking to each other. And I let her see by putting her hand on my face how we talked with our mouths. She felt the vibrations of the spoken word. Instantly she spelled "I want to talk with my mouth" That seemed impossible. But after experimenting for a time we found that by placing her hand in this position, the thumb resting on the throat. Right at the larynx. The first finger on the lips. The second on the nose, we found that she could feel the vibration of spoken words.For instance on the throat she feels the "G" the hard "G". And the "K" sound. On the lips she feels the "B" and the "P" .With the second finger on the nose the nasal sound. The "N" .The first word she learned to articulate was the little word "it". With the hand in this position I made the vowel "I". She felt it. Then I made the "T". She feels it with the fingers on my lips. Then I put the two letters together to form the word "it". And the first word was learned. After seven lessons she was able to speak the sentence word by word (Helen Keller speaking)..."I am not dumb now".