Deafblindness Awareness Week: The Modern Helen Kellers

David Faucheux will be back soon with audio commentary. He's awaiting a computer upgrade and, beyond that, has been feeling under the weather. Enjoy his past posts while you're waiting. One of my favorites is his audio essay on guide dog etiquette, an MP3 file which includes fond memories of Nader, his much-misssed yellow Lab. "He seemed to like to snooze under the table," David recalls of his library visits with Nader, "while bits of knowledge rained down on his slumbers." Elsewhere on this page you can find a lists of older postings by headilne and by date range.

Meanwhile here is a news story on Deafblindness Awareness Week in the U.S.. Apologies, but I don't see a mention in the story of the sponsoring organization at the national level. Could it be the American Association of the Deaf-Blind or another group mentioned on an Internet Resources Page for the deaf blind and their families? The most famous person with deafblindness, of course, was Helen Keller. One can imagine how much the Internet would have meant to her.

But back to the news story. The subject of the story, Clara Johnson, 39, of Anniston, Alabama, is learning to use the Internet for email and other purposes. The computer also teaches her English--her first language is American Sign Language. Some 40,000 Americans are deafblind. Although legally blind, Ms. Johnson can see partly with the aid of eyeglasses.

Might the article have been even more intesting with a subject who was totally blind? Any inspirational stories to report involving deafblind people whom you know? As usual, David F and I welcome your letters. You can write him at trivaguy@bellsouth.net, and I'm at dr@teleread.org.

Related: Deafblind Awareness Week as reported by the BBC, as well as a deafblind-related story out of Canada. Apaprently the U.K. version of the Week is different from the U.S. version as reported in the article on Clara Johnson. The U.S. version is June 27-July 3, while the BBC reports the U.K. version as June 21-25. The BBC story contains a link to Deafblind UK, which estimates that 24,000 people in the U.K. are deafblnd or dual senstory impaired. Other useful links could be the pages of the Australian DeafBlind Council and A Deafblind Web Resources Guide.

--Written and posted by David Rothman