How did Helen Keller learn abstract ideas, concepts, and how to express these things?

Question

I understand that Anne Sullivan, her teacher would spell words in using her hands and fingers into Helen's palm, and have her touch the object over and over to associate what was "spelled" with the object.

I think Helen became blind and deaf when she was about 18 months old. So if that is true, even though she was able to learn the association between the finger spelled words and the objects, how did she learn ideas and abstract concepts? How did her mind develop if all she could do was learn what objects were and maybe a few ideas that could be expressed concretely? How did she learn to think of and express ideas in sentences and elaborate verbiage?

Answer 1

As she was teaching Miss Keller to communicate,  Miss Sullivan was also teaching her things like history, geography, arithmentic, all the things people learn in school.  Miss Keller had a very sharp mind. Grasping concepts was not hard for her at all.  You just have to read anything Helen Keller wrote to know what an extraordinary woman she was.  Even if she hadn't overcome huge obstacles in her life, she'd still be quite magnificent.

Answer 2

Well, I have always admired the deaf/blind people I encounter as an interpreter.  There are people who were born both deaf and blind who achieve higher educations and work as professionals.  you might want to contact a place like the Helen Keller Center which works with Deaf/blind people and see if you can get more information on this topic.  Maybe you could even interview some Deaf/blind people.  The technology today is incredibile, and so many Deaf/blind people use the computer and read email on computers equipped with refreshable braille displays.

Deaf/blind people are truly amazing in what they do accomplish - especially those who were born that way.