Introduction

Helen Adams Keller was a person who had several disabilities that could have prevented her from achieving very much in her life. Especially during the time period that she was born and grew up, most people who were disabled were not able to go to school, work or live normal lives. A lot of them were sent to institutions , or special hospitals because no one knew how to help them. Despite the odds, Helen Keller was able to learn to communicate, function daily, earn an education and become a published author all while being blind and deaf. Helen Keller paved the way to a normal life for many disabled people today. 

There once was a girl named Helen Adams Keller, 

she was born on June 27, 1880 in a little town called Tuscumbia, Alabama. She was the first baby her parents had, and she was perfect. She walked and talked and played like any other baby could.

One terrible day when she was 18 months old, Helen became very sick. She had a very high fever for days. The fever was so terrible, it did damage to her brain. During this time period, many children died from fevers like this because they did not have medicines to help like we do today. When it finally broke, Helen's mother learned that her baby was blind and deaf. 

Helen continued to grow and her family did their very best to help her get around their home and do as many normal things as she could. Despite her parents trying to help her, daily life was very difficult for Helen because she could not communicate with anyone around her. She was always alone in complete darkness and silence.

Helen would become angry that she couldn't see or hear. It was so frustrating for her that she would throw enormous tantrums, kicking and screaming, throwing things and destroying everything around her. 

When Helen was seven years old, her father wrote a letter to Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts asking them to send a teacher to their home to help her. 

A few weeks later, a teacher named Anne Sullivan came to visit the Keller family to teach Helen. She brought Helen a doll and showed her how to spell the word d-o-l-l in her hand using finger spelling. 

At first, Helen didn't like Ms. Sullivan. She didn't let her misbehave and was trying to make her use finger spelling to tell her what she wanted or needed, but Helen wasn't able to understand yet and would become frustrated. Helen and Ms. Sullivan fought for weeks. 

Helen was so angry! Why was this lady bothering her all the time?! She didn't understand anything that was happening and she hated it! She started kicking and screaming and hitting Ms. Sullivan! She was going to get out of there! 

She ran outside as fast as she could and ran right into to the spigot , which was a pump that drew fresh water out of the ground. Ms. Sullivan ran after her and started pumping water onto Helen! UGH! Now she was wet! But, wait...

Mrs. Sullivan was spelling something onto her hand: W-A-T-E-R. W-A-T-E-R, W-A-T-E-R over and over again into Helen's hand. 

"Wait!" thought Helen, "this W-A-T-E-R is what is all over my hands!" 

Now she finally understood. Mrs. Sullivan was trying to teach her the words for the things around her.

Helen was so excited! She finally had a way to communicate about the world around her. That day, she learned how to finger spell over 30 new words. After a while, she even stopped misbehaving because now she was able to use words through finger spelling.