Kaata, Ragnhild Tollefsdatter

Born on a farm; became deaf and blind at age 4 from scarlet fever. Attended the school for the deaf at Hamar, Norway. She was taught to speak and to read and write Norwegian, as well as tactile lipreading, by Elias Hansen Hofgaard, principal of the Hamar school. She is often claimed to be the first prelingually deaf-blind person in history taught to speak. Famous at the time, her pioneering education influenced deaf-blind education in other countries, including that of Helen Keller, who mentions Kaata in her autobiography.