Before I lost my hearing and sight, I quickly learned to speak, but since I got that disease, I can't hear, so I can't speak. I sit on my mother's lap all day and put my hand on her face. I can feel the opening and closing of her lips. It's fun. Although I have long forgotten what talking is, I have learned to wriggle my lips like everyone else. My family said it was natural for me to cry and laugh.
Sometimes, I can make a sound in my mouth and spell a word or two, but this is not talking to others, but involuntarily exercising my pronunciation organs. There is only one word I can remember after my illness, and that is "water". I often pronounce it as "Wa……wa", and slowly the meaning of this word is almost forgotten. It was not until Miss Sullivan began to teach me how to spell the word with her fingers that she stopped pronouncing it.
I have long known that people around me communicate differently from me. Even before I knew that deaf people could learn to speak, I began to feel dissatisfied with my way of communication. A person who communicates with others completely by sign language always feels constrained and restricted. This feeling is becoming more and more unbearable for me, and I am trying to get rid of this bondage. I often flap my lips like a bird flapping its wings anxiously, trying to speak with my mouth. My family tried their best not to let me talk with my mouth, for fear that I would be discouraged if I didn't study well. But I am not discouraged. Later, I overheard the story of Nabukada, which strengthened my confidence in learning to speak.
1890, Mrs. Lamson, who taught Lola, just returned from a visit to Norway and Sweden, and then came to see me. She told me that there was a blind and deaf girl named Naboo Kada in Norway, and she had learned to speak. Before she finished telling me, I was so anxious that I secretly made up my mind to learn to speak. I clamored for Miss Sullivan to take me to Boston to find Miss Sarah Fuller, the headmaster of Horace School, and asked her to help me and teach me. This amiable lady is willing to teach me herself. So we began to learn to talk to her on March 26th. 1890.
Miss fuller taught me how to put my hand gently on her face when she pronounced, so that I could feel how her tongue and lips moved. I carefully imitated her every move, and learned to say the letters M, P, A, S and T with my mouth in less than an hour.
Miss fuller always gives me 1 1 lessons. I'll never forget what a surprise it was when I said "very warm" for the first time! Although they are only a few intermittent syllables, they are human languages after all. I realized that there was a new power that freed me from the shackles of my soul. With these intermittent language marks, I can master complete knowledge and gain faith.
If a deaf person desperately wants to say something he has never heard before, to get out of a dead and silent world, to get rid of a life without love and warmth, without insects and birds singing and beautiful music, he will never forget it. When he said the first word, he felt ecstatic, just like electricity. Only such a person can know how eager I am to play with toys. Stones, trees, birds and dumb animals can talk; Only such people can know how happy I am when my sister can understand my greetings and those puppies can obey my orders.
Now I can speak with my wings, and I don't need anyone to help me translate. The convenience I got from this can't be described in words. Now I can think and talk at the same time, which I could never do with my fingers.
But don't think I can really say it in such a short time. I just learned the basics of speaking. Only Miss Fuller and Miss Sullivan can understand what I mean, and others can only understand a little. After I learned these basic phonetics, I couldn't have learned natural phonetics so quickly without Miss Sullivan's genius and her persistent efforts.
At first, I tried to make my closest friends understand me day and night. Later, with the help of teacher Sullivan, I practiced pronouncing every sound accurately over and over again and practicing the free combination of various sounds. Until now, she has been correcting my incorrect pronunciation every day.
Only those who have taught deaf children to speak can understand what this means, and only they can realize what difficulties I have to overcome. I feel Miss Sullivan's lips completely with my fingers: I use my touch to grasp her throat trembling, mouth movements and facial expressions, which are often inaccurate. In this case, I force myself to practice those words and sentences with poor pronunciation repeatedly, sometimes for hours until I feel the intonation is accurate.
My task is to practice, practice and practice again. Failure and fatigue often trip me up, but I have the courage to think that if I persist for a period of time, I can pronounce my pronunciation correctly and let the people I love see my progress. I am eager to see them smile at my success.
"My sister will understand me." This has become a firm belief that inspires me to overcome all difficulties. I often repeat in ecstasy: "I am not stupid now." I am full of confidence at the thought that I will be able to talk freely with my mother and understand her reaction with my lips. I was really surprised when I found it much easier to speak with my mouth than with my fingers. For this reason, I no longer use sign language letters to talk to people. But Miss Sullivan and some friends still talk to me in this way, because sign language letters are more convenient and I can understand them faster than lip reading. Here, maybe I should explain the sign language letters used by the blind and deaf. Those who don't know us seem a little confused about sign language. When people read to me or talk to me, they spell words and sentences on my hand with one hand in the usual way used by deaf people. I put my hand gently on the speaker's hand, on the one hand, it doesn't hinder the movement of his fingers, on the other hand, I can easily feel the movement of his fingers. I feel the same as reading a book. I feel like a word, not a single letter. The people I talk to are flexible with their fingers because of their frequent movements. Some people spell letters very quickly, just like a skilled typist typing on a typewriter. Of course, skilled spelling, like writing, has become an unconscious action for me.
I can't wait to go home after I can speak with my mouth. This important moment has finally arrived, and I am on my way home. Along the way, Miss Sullivan and I kept talking with our mouths. I don't speak for the sake of speaking, but seize every opportunity to improve my speaking ability as much as possible. Before I realized it, the train had already entered the station, and I saw my family standing on the platform to meet us. When I got off the train, my mother held me in her arms, trembling all over, too excited to say a word, silently listening to every sound I made. My little sister Amy Julie grabbed my hand, kissed me and jumped for joy. Father stood by without saying a word, but his kind face showed a very happy expression. Until now, I can't help crying when I think of this scene. It seems that Isaiah's prophecy has really come true for me: "The mountains sing in unison and the trees clap their hands and cheer!" "