Learning speech was an extremely challenging task for Helen because she could not hear. Helen had always been capable of making noises and would often do so. She recounts that she had been learning to talk before her illness but couldn’t do so as a result of her loss of hearing. The only word she could recall was ‘water’ which she pronounced as “wa-wa”. She wanted to learn to speak the way hearing people do. Her thoughts beat up like birds against the wind. She moved her lips but nothing tangible happened. Even her friends discouraged her, but she did not lose heart.
The story of Ragnhild Kaata motivated her to persevere in spite of repeated failures. Helen learned about Ragnhild Kaata, a deaf and blind girl in Norway, who had learned to talk. Miss Fuller offered to be Helen’s teacher. Helen’s strong determination and hard work overcame all the hurdles and she achieved what she wanted. She learnt to speak because of her, her teachers - Miss Sullivan and Miss Fuller’s - hard work.
