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Graduate of Gallaudet University in 2003; later that year, appointed director of the Department of Case Management and Social Services in the Massachusetts Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. He was believed to be the highest-ranking deaf-blind man ever in that state.

Born blind only; in an institution for the blind until deafened at age 8. Nothing was done for her for the next 13 years, and she became increasingly wild and unmanageable until she entered the Ohio School for the Deaf at Columbus. Under the patient care of a Miss Buckles, she became more docile and manageable, establishing friendships with the deaf pupils of the school.

Born in Wigtown; blind and then deaf at age 9 from scrofula. Rejected by the Edinburgh school for the deaf, he entered the Edinburgh school for the blind instead in 1870. Learned 6 different reading systems for the blind and then British fingerspelling. A biographical tract appeared in 1881 as Story of a Blind Mute.

Apparently deaf at first, then developed cataracts at age 10, blinding him also. Sent to an unspecified school in Doncaster, then to Henshaws where he learned basket-weaving and rug-making.

Deaf and legally blind (from Usher's Syndrome); native of Louisiana. Studied culinary arts at Seattle Community College; interned with renowned chef Paul Prudhomme; owned the Ragin' Cajun Restaurant in Seattle.

Born deaf at Ludow; rejected by her mother because of her deafness, at age 6 she went to live with two maiden aunts. An uncle on the aunts' side of the family died and bequeathed a vast sum of money to Jane, which was used to set up a trust fund for Jane. With that money, she attended the Braidwood Academy for the Deaf and Dumb in Hackney 1787-1795. After both aunts passed away, Jane inherited the full trust and hired a servant maid who was fluent in the manual alphabet. Her sister and mother, greedy and jealous of Jane's wealth, made repeated attempts to seize control of her finances. Jane became blind in 1841 at the age of 60, dependent on her trusted servants and a trusted cousin to protect her interests. After defeating her sister's attempt to grab the largest part of another inheritance that was supposed to be divided equally, she had a will drawn up, using the manual alphabet to dictate it. Upon Jane's death, her greedy sister challenged the will on grounds that Jane, being deaf-blind, could not possibly have written such a complicated legal statement and that deaf people were incapable of writing wills. A special jury in 1861 ruled that the will was valid, establishing the important British legal precedence that deaf people were not in any way intellectually inferior to hearing persons because of their handicap, firmly establishing the right of deaf persons to write wills and have them upheld in court.

Hearing. Became a teacher of the deaf at the Institute for the Deaf, St. Michielsgestel, The Netherlands, in 1958. Interested in the deaf-blind, he later studied at the Perkins Institute for the Blind, Watertown, MA, and at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, earning his Ph.D. in 1982. Worked at Florida State University from 1976 on. Developer of a method of teaching deaf-blind children.

Born deaf and blind into extreme poverty on the island of Feltar in the Shetland Isles, Scotland. Never educated or even taught to walk, he dressed only in a coarse blanket and nothing else and seldom ventured out of his parents' house.

Deaf-blind. Blinded at age 5 by meningitis, deafened at age 7; B.A. (1950) from St. John's University; M.A. from New York University (1953, first deaf-blind person to earn a master's degree). Director of the Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults; received many awards and honorary degrees.

Born at Alleghany (PA?); deafened and blinded by meningitis at age 3. Sent to Boston in the care of a nurse, then entered the Jamaica Kindergarten in Boston, then to the Perkins School for the Blind in 1891. After leaving Perkins in 1913, became a carpenter making vegetable crates for farmers.