Girl Was Dumb and Now Talks.
Miss Helen Dodge, eighteen years old, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H. G. Dodge, of Lestershire, N. Y., born deaf and dumb, will deliver an oral oration at her graduation from the Malone State Institution for the Deaf and Dumb in June.
Miss Dodge’s case is considered one of the most remarkable in the history of teaching the deaf and dumb. She was placed in the institution when only four years old, and has been a student there ever since.
Her teacher soon discovered that she was unusually intelligent and began experimenting in an effort to teach her to speak. Her vocal chords were found to be in normal condition, and before she was seven years old she had been taught to make sounds which were intelligible. She now speaks as distinctly and with as much expression as a person with the normal faculty of hearing, and it is declared that hers is the first case of the kind in this or any other institution.