Famous People with Vision Impairment

Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder - (born Steveland Hardaway Judkins on May 13, 1950, name later changed to Steveland Hardaway Morris), is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. Blind from infancy, Wonder signed with Motown Records as a pre-adolescent at age twelve, and continues to perform and record for the label to this day. It is thought that he received excessive oxygen in his incubator which led to retinopathy of prematurity, a destructive ocular disorder affecting the retina, characterized by abnormal growth of blood vessels, scarring, and sometimes retinal detachment.

Louis Braille

Louis Braille became blind after he accidentally stabbed himself in the eye with his father's awl. He later became an inventor and designed braille writing, which enables blind people to read through feeling a series of organized bumps representing letters. This concept was beneficial to all blind people from around the world and is commonly used even today. If it were not for Louis Braille's blindness he may not have invented this method of reading and no other blind person could have enjoyed a story or been able to comprehend important paperwork.

Helen Keller

Helen Keller lived an amazing life. She was born on June 27, 1880 in Alabama. Her father was a successful editor for the town’s newspaper. Her mother was a homemaker and did not work outside of the house. While Helen was a young child, she caught a terrible fever.

In most cases this fever would have killed the child, but Helen fought through it. When the fever broke however, they discovered that Helen was not only blinded from the fever, her hearing was also taken. Helen’s parents were devastated, but with her strong ability to fight off things, they knew from that point on that Helen would make it through.

Since she didn’t have her major senses, Helen used her sense of smell and her sense of touch to take their place. She followed her mother around everything, holding on to the back of her skirt. Soon learning how to adapt to her loss of sight and hearing, she learned to recognize people by either touching their faces or their clothing. Some of her father’s friends could be recognized by the sweet smells of tobacco. By the age of seven, Helen learned how to sign many different things. It was her way of communicating with her family, but it was not known sign language. If she wanted certain food items or a drink, she signed to her mother or father and they would get it for her. About this time Helen realized that she was different. She would throw horrible temper tantrums and threw things about when she could not get her way. Sometimes just out of the blue she would go into violent rages just because it was so hard for her to get anything that she wanted.

Around the time that Helen started having bad outbursts, her parents had decided to hire a tutor that could help her. Although her parents were skeptical because Helen had lost both sight and hearing, they we willing to try to do anything to help their daughter.

Anne Sullivan was the tutor’s name. She was blind as well and came from a poor upbringing. Anne soon understood though that the reason Helen was so unruly and throwing such fits was due to lack of communication, not because Helen was a bad child.

Slowly they began the process of learning the alphabet and certain things that Helen would need right away. First she was taught how to sign water. This was a very tedious thing. Anne would sign water into Helen’s hand, and then show her the water pump and let her feel the cool water on her hand. Over and over Anne did this until finally Helen understood what she was signing was water! After about two years of work and very slow progress, Helen could talk in full sentences.

Helen’s parents were amazed at the progress she had made. Anne had suggested to them that in order for Helen to get into a college, perhaps she should go to the Perkin Institute for the Blind.After spending about 6 years at this school, Helen learned how to read braille. It was a very big step. Helen was a very intelligent young lady and her aspirations were limitless.

In 1894 she left for Wright-Humason School for Deaf in New York. Helen was learning how to read with braille and now she would be able to learn how to sign to the world after her schooling in New York. After completing the program successfully, she went on to college. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1904. Helen was at the top of her class and she graduated with honors. Her parents were very proud of her, but also at the same time so very grateful to Anne Sullivan. Shortly after her graduating, she wrote a book entitled “The Story Of My Life”. With the proceeds from the book, Helen was able to buy her own house.

Keller went on to become a world-famous speaker and author. She is remembered as an advocate for people with disabilities amid numerous other causes. She was a suffragette, apacifist, an opponent of Woodrow Wilson, a radical Socialist, and a birth control supporter. In 1915, Helen Keller and George Kessler founded the Helen Keller International (HKI) organization. This organization is devoted to research in vision, health and nutrition. In 1920, she helped to found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Keller and Sullivan traveled to over 39 countries, making several trips to Japan and becoming a favorite of the Japanese people. Keller met every US President from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson and was friends with many famous figures, including Alexander Graham Bell, Charlie Chaplin, and Mark Twain. One of Keller's earliest pieces of writing, at the age of eleven, was The Frost King (1891). There were allegations that this story had been plagiarized from The Frost Fairies by Margaret Canby. An investigation into the matter revealed that Keller may have experienced a case of cryptomnesia, which was that she had Canby's story read to her but forgot about it, while the memory remained in her subconscious. Keller wrote The World I Live In in 1908 giving readers an insight into how she felt about the world.Out of the Dark, a series of essays on Socialism, was published in 1913.Keller wrote a total of 12 published books and several articles. During Helen’s adulthood, she was a very religious woman. She soon discovered the fight for women’s rights and became an advocate of it. Attending lectures and fighting for women to be equal was a passion for Helen. Also during her adulthood she traveled the country telling her life story to others in hopes that they would not loose faith and never give up when faced with a challenge. Helen Keller died in 1968. Still today she is an inspiration to so many people.