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Question: Did Helen Keller make a significant contribution to american political,cultural or social development!?
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yes she did if she hadn't we would have never know who she was!. I like your questionWww@QuestionHome@Com

During her lifetime, Helen Keller received awards of great distinction!. These awards include Brazil's Order of the Southern Cross; Japan's Sacred Treasure; the Philippines' Golden Heart; Lebanon's Gold Medal of Merit; and her own country's highest honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom!. In 1933 she was elected to membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters!. During the Louis Braille Centennial Commemoration in 1952, Miss Keller was made a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor at a ceremony in the Sorbonne!. Miss Keller also received the Americas Award for Inter-American Unity, the Gold Medal Award from the National Institute of Social Sciences, the National Humanitarian Award from Variety Clubs International, and many others!. She held honorary memberships in scientific societies and philanthropic organizations throughout the world!. Helen spoke five languages, and went to college at a time when American women simply did not go to college!.

These awards were the highest honors of their respective countries, given in recognition, not of a handicapped woman, but of a woman whose tireless efforts to promote understanding, secure education for the blind and deaf,overcome the limitations of her disabilities, and educate the world on the role of disabled persons within a society!.
Yes, she was instrumental in changing Americans attitudes concerning the blind and deaf!. She appeared before legislatures, gave lectures, wrote articles!. A remarkable woman, an American icon and hero!. Helen was all this, and more, a humble and brilliant person!.
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Oh absolutely!.

There have been several TV movies regarding her transformation from an uncontrollable blind and deaf child with little understanding as to how to communicate into a refined well educated writer, inspiration to those with disabilities and their families and a relentless campaigner on behalf of the rights of those with disabilities!.

What Helen Keller did, was essentially in the 20th century to prove beyond a doubt that deaf and blind people (either disability or both as was the case for Helen) were intelligent thoughtful people with the ability to reach beyond their disabilities and communicate with the seeing and hearing world, deserved as well as craved to be communicative and productive people!.

Before Keller's campaign to relate her own transformation, it was common to institutionalize people / children with severe hearing and/or sight impediments in asylums, old age homes, orphanages, or placed into other unsavory conditions to live out their lives isolated and unable to gain autonomy!. Essentially there were no guide dogs, no sign language, no braille or education of any sort!. Being blind could lead to a deaf or blind person being treated like an infalid!. Helen proved that sign language and braille were the keys to legitimate and capable ways to communicate complex ideas and that even someone like her who was both deaf and blind could be taught!. (and in her case by someone with someone with limited vision capabilities)!.

She revolutionized education and rights for the severely sight and/or hearing disabled!.

Her influence helped create private and government funded schools across the US for children and adults with disabilities and as a result, proved that being deaf or blind did not mitigate a person being able to be a productive tax paying person!. Think of some of the most famous deaf and/or blind people you've ever heard of, like say Ray Charles for example who attended a state school for the blind!. It is arguable that his education would not have been what it was without Helen Keller, and would not have Charles' contibution to American culture!.

Helen took away the stigmas and the myths of idiocy away from sight and hearing impairment!. She was a great american!.

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Yes, there were many including she was the first deafblind person to graduate from college, she was a social activist, and she help introduce the Akita dog from Japan to the United States, to name a few!.Www@QuestionHome@Com