Revised Helen Keller

Helen Keller’s Fight with Learning Disability

Obinna Okwara

Southern New Hampshire University

Helen Keller’s Fight with Learning Disability

Description of disorder

Helen Keller, an American educator, overcame misfortune of being deaf and blind to become one of the leading humanitarians of the 20th century. She also was the co-founder of the ACLU. Helen was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, that is, on June 27, 1880. She was the first child of two daughters born to Katherine Adams Keller and Arthur H. Keller. Although, she had other two step brothers. Helen’s father proudly served in the Confederation Army during the Civil War as an officer. The family was not that wealthy, but got some income from their cotton plantation. After the Civil War, Arthur became the editor of North Alabamian; weekly local newspaper.

Helen Keller was born with a sense of hearing and sight, and she began speaking when she was about six months old. She also began walking at the age of one. However, in the year 1882, Helen suffered from an illness that was termed as brain fever. According to her doctor, the brain fever produced a high body temperature. The exact nature of the illness is not clear until today, although there are some experts who argue that scarlet fever or meningitis may have caused the problem. After a few days of suffering from the illness, Helen’s mother realized that her daughter was not responding to dinner bell when it was run. She did not show any reaction. Another thing noticed was that she could not see a hand being waved in front of her face. This was when the parents realized that Helen had lost her sight together with hearing. This took place when she was just nineteen months old.

Helen developed a few method of communication with her companion, Martha Washington, as she grew into childhood. Martha was a young daughter of the family cook. Helen and Martha had developed a unique type of sign language. By the time Helen reached seven years, they had come up with more than sixty signs that they used to communicate with each other. However, Helen had become very unruly and wild at this time. Most of the time she would scream and kick, especially when she was angry. But also giggle uncontrollably when she was happy. Martha was tormented by the new character of Helen. The character also inflicted raging tantrums on her own parents. Many family members suggested that the child should be institutionalized.

The life of Helen changed when she met Anne Mansfield Sullivan. This was on March 3, 1887. Anne came to be Helen’s teacher. By that time, Anne was a twenty-year-old graduate. She had graduated from Perkins School for the Blind. She also had a similar childhood same as that of Helen. “She was the daughter of poor Irish immigrants, and entered Perkins at 14 years of age after four horrific years as a ward of the state at the Tewksbury Almshouse in Massachusetts” (Crow, 2000, p. 850). The success of Anne when it comes to dealing with Helen remains something remarkable and extraordinary. Most people have managed to get an insight into this remarkable story because of the film The Miracle Worker. According to the film, Helen is depicted as a spoilt, unruly, but very right child. This child intimidated the whole household with her temper outbursts.

There are some differences between the normal brain function and the brain function of a person with hearing loss. The word reorganization can best use to tell the difference when it comes to the functioning of the brains under consideration. Reorganization begins to take place when one starts to lose his or her hearing. Like in the case of Helen, there was a problem neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is about how the brain reorganizes itself through the formation of new neuron connection throughout life. As per neuroplasticity, the brain will be able to change as one is growing or aging. This means that the ability to reorganize activities stops to work correctly.

how an eye normally works can be compared to a camera. Eyes have got a transparent covering referred to as cornea, which is a transparent, clear covering in the front side of the eye. The cornea also helps to focus light properly on the retina. There are nerve fibers that extend back from the nerve cells of the retina join together behind the retina so as to form the optic nerve. The optic nerve is a cable of nerve fibers that connects the eye to the brain. The message that is being seen by the eyes is transmitted to the brain through the optic nerve. In the case of Helen, the illness that she suffered from seemed to have interfered with the proper functioning of the optic nerve. Whatever image that was being seen by the eyes was not being transmitted to the brain.

Relationship between psychological and physiological aspects of the disorder

In most cases, hearing loss has been found to result in psychological, social, and physical problems. There are those who are affected differently by the problem, but a large number of people with hearing loss suffer physical, psychological and social problems. All of these are attributed to hearing loss.

Below are some of the psychological consequences:

· Depression or sadness

· Suspiciousness and anxiety

· Anger, guilt, shame, and embarrassment

· Low self-confidence or esteem and self-criticism

Physical consequences are:

· Sleeping and eating problem

· Stress

· Headache

· Exhaustion and tiredness

· Sexual problem

Vision impairment is a serious public problem. This is because it causes suffering, disability, and loss of productivity. It produces various levels of psychic suffering. This type of suffering is even greater compared to other types of sensory impairment. Vision loss affects all areas of development. Motor development is impacted negatively since a child may end not being motivated to the direction of something that is not being seen. It may also cause inhibition to move as a result of the fear of unknown. Also, cognitive development is affected due to lack of exploration of the environment and other materials. Not being able to see hinders a child from being able to pick non-verbal clues around him or her. One of the consequences of vision loss is that that language acquisition of a child may end up being impacted. This is due to limited interaction with people and the environment. Interacting with people and the environment helps when it comes to language development of a child. Additionally, delays in certain areas of independence of functions when it comes to daily activities are affected. Observation becomes impossible for these victims.

Technological advances

Hearing loss

There are new advances made when comes to determining and treating hearing loss that if Helen could have been born at this time, then her problem could have been determined and treated at early stages. The explosion of new technology and new information regarding how we hear has made it possible for people with hearing loss get some help (Dalton, Cruickshanks, Klein, Klein, Wiley, & Nondahl, 2003). It is now very easy to carry out a diagnosis to determine hearing loss through comprehensive testing. Recent advances in diagnosis techniques are:

· Universal neonatal hearing screening – this makes it possible to test hearing loss in babies within the forty-eight hour of birth. It helps to establish if an infant has hearing loss, hence, making administration of treatment be easy.

· Special auditory tests – this test identifies the exact place of auditory impairment

· Auditory brainstem response (ABR) testing – it tests auditory disorder and is utilized with the difficult-to-test population. It can be used to determine hearing loss in people of different ages. There is no need for a referral since one is very young.

· Optoacoustic emissions testing – gives information about hearing nerve found in the inner ear. It also helps to establish the cause of hearing loss.

· Immittance testing – this test is for complete and objective evaluation of middle ear activities. it can also be used to examine the nerve function of the ear.

Below are some of improved treatment and rehabilitation methods:

· Specialized education program for those who are having hearing loss, such as children

· Individually tailored together with computerized training when it comes to lip reading or speech reading, counseling, and auditory training.

· Help in everyday listening. This is possible through custom-designed personal hearing devices

· Assistance in certain listening situations (group listening device, telephone, and television) through using assistive listening aids

· Those who are suffering from tinnitus that is, ringing in the ear can now benefit from the utilization on well-designed tinnitus maskers

· Individuals who are having profound deafness can be helped through the use of tactile hearing aids, alerting devices, and cochlear implants.

Vision loss

There are now well-trained ophthalmologists who have properly specialized in diagnosing and treating eyes together with their diseases. Apart from the use of ophthalmologists, it is now possible to perform an external examination of different parts of the eye and around the eye, such as a lens, iris, cornea, lid, and conjunctiva.

Below are some tests used to examine visual impairment:

· Snellen test – another name for this test is visual acuity test. It involves the use of a chart that has progressive shortening random letter. A patient is required to establish the letters from six meters away.

· Visual field test – this test establishes the peripheral vision of the eyes. A device is usually strapped over the eyes of a patient. Lights will be flashed on and off in the peripheral vision of the patient.

· Tonometry test – this test makes use of a specialized instrument when it comes to determining the fluid pressure that is inside the eye.

· Ocular motility assessment – helps to determine if there is squint of other issues in the eyeballs’ movement.

Different types of advances have been made when it comes to treating vision loss. Some of these advances involve medical surgical and non-medical treatment. These treatments are:

· Surgery to remove cataracts or surgery to treat the tumor, such as in the case of retinoblastoma. Retinoblastoma is a cancer of the retina while cataracts are certain things that not only blurs the images but also causes interruption to the progress of visual pathway in the brain (Rein, 2013).

· Cryotherapy or laser surgery for retinopathy. Retinopathy is usually caused by prematurity that is, having an infant with a birth weight of 2.75 pounds or less.

· Use of vision aids

· Assistance from occupational therapy so as to give a hand with regards to learning activities, age appropriate play, and fine motor skills.

· Availability of orientation and mobility training. This training will help child to get insight related to things, such as sensory awareness (obtaining information about the world through touch, smell, and hearing), spatial concept (getting to know the relationship that is present between the environment and objects), searching skills (locating places or items perfectly), and independent movement (walking, rolling, and crawling).

Appropriate treatment options and coping mechanisms

Helen was deaf and blind, meaning that two major forms of treatments will be required in her case. The first one will be one directed towards dealing with hearing loss while the second one will be for vision loss.

When it comes to hearing loss, the problem should have been diagnosed with the use of the special auditory test. This test would have determined the exact part of the ear having problems. For example, if it were cochlear then the cochlear implant would have been the recommended treatment method. This form of treatment can also be used to help other people with search problem. Also, another treatment option for Helen is providing her with a custom-designed personal hearing device. This will be a device that is exactly suitable for her problem.

Advances concerning vision loss were not that much in around the 1880s and compared to the ones that are present today. Tests, such as visual field test, tonometry, and ocular motility assessment were not present by then. Since the vision loss of Helen was linked to issues of images being transmitted to the brain. Her problem can be linked to the presence of cataracts. Cataracts caused interruption to the progress of visual pathway in the brain. This means that the recommenced treatment method will be the administration of surgery to remove cataracts. Cataracts are usually the clouding of the internal focusing lens of the eye.

Today, cataracts are known to be one of the most curable problems related to vision loss, but if the problem is not dealt with early enough, then it may end up causing blindness. Helen’s problem should have been treated early enough. If surgery could have been done in time to remove cataracts, then Helen would not have ended up being blind. Blindness takes place if the brain does not get a clear visual message from the two eyes as a result of the presence of cataracts. The preferred treatment method, in this case, is to carryout surgical process and gets rid of cataracts. If this process fails to work then another better option available today is the use of screen reader and refreshable Braille display. The two will enable Helen to appropriately make good use of things, such as mainstream computer applications.

References

Crow, L. (2000). Helen Keller: Rethinking the problematic icon. Disability & Society, 15(6),

845-859.

Dalton, D. S., Cruickshanks, K. J., Klein, B. E., Klein, R., Wiley, T. L., & Nondahl, D. M.

(2003). The impact of hearing loss on quality of life in older adults. The Gerontologist, 43(5), 661-668.

Rein, D. B. (2013). Vision problems are a leading source of modifiable health expenditures.

Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, 54 (14), 18–22.