Helen's story about being educated as a deaf-blind child is extraordinary, but as it is over a hundred years old, many things have changed since the late 1800s when Anne Sullivan taught Helen. Helen's case is an example of how deaf-blind education was approached prior to the 1960s; while there were some immense successes, they were all incidental, as educators typically singled out and taught only those students who showed great potential to learn.
This changed, however, in the early 1960s. An outbreak of rubella began in Europe in 1963, and spread rapidly to the United States. Fetuses are particularly susceptible to defects when pregnant mothers contract rubella, so numerous infants were either born with deaf-blindness or contracted it at a very early age. These children presented unique challenges to educators because rubella often affected the development of motor skills as well, which are critical in deaf-blind education. A new approach had to be found if these children were to be educated like Helen was.
Teachers approached this problem in much the same way Anne Sullivan approached teaching Helen. Rather than discouraging a deaf-blind child's erratic movements (e.g., rocking, jumping, putting hands in front of eyes), the teachers joined in with it in a process called "moving-acting together." This was meant to allow the child to take the lead in guiding how she would learn, just as Miss Sullivan did for Helen. Eventually, when motor skills were fine-tuned, teachers could begin instructing these children in more complex forms of communication.
Another big change in deaf-blind education that came after 1960 was using full sign language, rather than just the manual alphabet as Helen did. Earlier, fingerspelling was seen as the most practical way to teach deaf-blind children; a shift, however, came more recently, when sign language began being widely recognized as a real and effective language for deaf individuals. If a deaf-blind child were being educated today, he would begin learning sign language at an early age, rather than using finger spelling like Helen.
Finally, a controversial topic of deaf-blind education today is inclusion. Many parents want their deaf-blind children to be educated alongside seeing and hearing individuals, rather than being singled out. Up until recently, this was seen as impossible; however, it has been proven that deaf-blind children can gain important knowledge about social interaction from being educated in an inclusive classroom. This was true of Helen's own experience later in life, when she began attending the Cambridge School and benefited greatly from learning alongside seeing and hearing girls. While this is still a contentious issue, more educators and policymakers are examining the idea of inclusive classrooms for deaf-blind children.
