# What goes through the mind of someone born deaf/blind/mute? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 8, 2004, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-goes-through-the-mind-of-someone-born-deaf-blind-mute/223366 "2004-01-08T05:38:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrentLumkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9d8465/32.png) [@BrentLumkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrentLumkin)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2004, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-goes-through-the-mind-of-someone-born-deaf-blind-mute/223366/1 "2004-01-08T05:38:49Z")
Call me weird, but I think about this quite offten. Is it one of those things where no one really knows, or what? I’m being rather serious about this in case you are wondering. It really just gets to me when I think about this. ---
**Author:** ![Titan2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Titan2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Titan2)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2004, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-goes-through-the-mind-of-someone-born-deaf-blind-mute/223366/2 "2004-01-08T06:51:15Z")
I wouldn’t quote this as gospel,but at a Comedy roast when Pat Buttram was roasting Henny Youngman he told a story that when Youngman was doing his monologue on the Kate Smith radio show, and the Keller family was sitting in the parlor listening;little Helen,arms flailing around ala Patty Duke in the Miracle Worker,said the first words ever spoken by her: \*\* “somebody turn that cocksucker off!”\*\* A riot when listening to Pat Buttram deliver those lines in his deadpan face and squeaky voice. Sorry can’t help with an educated opinion.In those cases I always think of the clam story in Johnathon Livingston Seagull? Who’s that knocking on my door? ---
**Author:** ![NoGoodNamesLeft](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8797f3/32.png) [@NoGoodNamesLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoGoodNamesLeft)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2004, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-goes-through-the-mind-of-someone-born-deaf-blind-mute/223366/3 "2004-01-08T12:55:30Z")
I have a diploma in deaf/blind intervention, and I’m not even sure how to answer your question. I’m not sure it can be answered. I don’t think there’s any way to definitively say what would be going through any one person’s mind at any given time. People born deaf/blind are generally born with other complications as well, most of which would affect cognative development, and those with no (or slight) accompanying disorders can learn to communicate, and quite effectively. I’ve often thought they (in extreme cases) act more on instinct than anything else. From my experience, it’s much more difficult to work with people born deaf/blind than people who become deaf/blind later in life, ymmv. ---
**Author:** ![NoGoodNamesLeft](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8797f3/32.png) [@NoGoodNamesLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoGoodNamesLeft)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2004, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-goes-through-the-mind-of-someone-born-deaf-blind-mute/223366/4 "2004-01-08T13:00:09Z")
Oh and FTR, I don’t think anybody uses “mute” anymore. It’s not so much a PC thing as it is a total misnomer. If you’d heard some of the noises some of the “mute” kids I’ve worked with can generate, you’d see what I mean! I think it’s a ‘left-over’ term for Deaf people who did not speak (by choice or by teaching). Rarely will you find any person (deaf, blind, deaf/blind or otherwise) who is totally “mute” in the strictest sense of the word (makes no sound). ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2004, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-goes-through-the-mind-of-someone-born-deaf-blind-mute/223366/5 "2004-01-08T13:14:43Z")
I used to be a Helen Keller nut, and I remember reading passages where she wrote about her mental state before she could communicate. (Granted, she was not born deaf/blind, but her writing might give some insight.) Try her autobiography. You could also look up **Laura Bridgman,** an older contemporary of Helen’s who lost all her senses but touch. She was much more introverted, though – content to sit and knit – so I don’t know if we have any such onformation from her. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2004, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-goes-through-the-mind-of-someone-born-deaf-blind-mute/223366/6 "2004-01-08T13:24:11Z")
Just did some surfing . . . the Webmaster of this page (who is deaf-blind himself) might be able to help you: [http://www.deafblind.com](http://www.deafblind.com) ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2004, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-goes-through-the-mind-of-someone-born-deaf-blind-mute/223366/7 "2004-01-08T13:34:05Z")
I happen to be currently reading Helen Keller’s biography. One thing that surprises me is how like a sighted, hearing person’s her accounts of things are. It seems to me that she did not think any differently than I do. Communication and expression were big deals for her, but I find nothing unfamiliar about her internal thought processes. As for her life before Miss Sullivan arrived in Chapter 4, aside from the parts about communicating with others, it could have been the account of any five-year-old girl; I’m amazed at how perceptive she must have been, though. However, the way she talks about learning to communicate, it seems as great a revelation as would be regaining the ability to see and hear: > [@](#): > > Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbour was. “Light! give me light!” was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.