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When I saw Hellen Keller first,

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she was 6 years and 8 months old.

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She had been blind and deaf,

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and mute since her 19th month,

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as the result of an illness.

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She had no way of communicating

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with those around her,

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except a few imitative signs

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that she had made for herself.

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A push meant go and a pull meant come, and so on.

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She had observed that we did not use the hands

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when we were talking to each other.

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And I let her see,

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by putting her hand on my face

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how we talked with our mouths.

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She felt the vibrations

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of the spoken word

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Instantly, she spelled

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I want to talk with my mouth.

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That seemed impossible.

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But after experimenting

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for a time,

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we found that

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placing her hand in this position,

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the thumb resting on the throat, right at the larnyx

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the first finger on the lips, the second on the nose,

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we found that she could feel

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the vibrations of spoken words.

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For instance,

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the throat, she feels the "g", the hard "g"

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[pronounces the hard g sound, helen echoes] guh, guh

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and on the lips, she feels the, uh,

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and the the "k" sound,

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[pronouncing the k sound, helen echoing] kuh, kuh

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and the lips, she feels the , uh, "b"

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[pronouncing the b sound, helen echoes] buh,

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with the second finger on the nose, the nasal sounds

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the "nnn" [Helen echoes "nnn"]

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The first word

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she learned to articulate

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was the little word, "it".

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With the hand in this position,

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I made vowel, "ihh" (helen echoes) "ihh"

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She felt it, "ihh" (Helen echoes "ihh")

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Then I made the "t", "thh" (Helen echos) "thh"

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She feels it with the finger on her lip.

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on my lips.

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Then I put the two letters together,

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to form word, "it"

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(Helen) It.

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and the first word was learned.

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After her seventh lesson,

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she was able to speak the sentence,

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word by word,

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I - am - not - dumb - now. [Helen echoes word by word]

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[Captions by Captionwire.com]