Helen Keller & Anne Sullivan (1928 Newsreel Footage with Open Captions and Audio Description)

Helen Keller’s loss of vision and hearing in infancy made comprehension of the outside world next to impossible—or so it seemed. When teacher Anne Sullivan agreed to work with Keller, that world opened up, especially when Keller comprehended the function and purpose of language. Keller and Sullivan appear in this newsreel footage from 1928, in which Sullivan explains and then demonstrates the methodology used to teach Keller language, most elements of which are still used worldwide with students who are deaf-blind. This full-length version is brought to you by the Described and Captioned Media Program () with the permission of the copyright holder, the University of South Carolina Newsreel Library (). It has been described for the blind and captioned for the deaf. To learn more about description and captioning, visit the following websites: and