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Ragnhild Kåta

Ragnhild Kåta
Born (1873-05-23)May 23, 1873
Kåtaeiet, Vestre Slidre, Oppland, Norway
Died February 12, 1947(1947-02-12) (aged 73)
Citizenship Norwegian
Known for Ragnhild Kåta was the first deafblind person in Norway who received proper schooling.

Ragnhild Tollefsen Kåta (23 May 1873 – 12 February 1947) was the first deafblind person in Norway who received proper schooling. Despite being deafblind, she learned to talk. The story of her success was an inspiration to Helen Keller.

Ragnhild Kåta was born at Kåtaeiet in the parish of Vestre Slidre in Oppland, Norway. At the age of three and a half, she lost her sight, hearing, sense of smell and taste, possibly due to scarlet fever.

Teacher and author Hallvard Bergh (1850-1922), after meeting Ragnhild in 1887, wrote a passionate piece about her tragic plight in Verdens Gang. The piece was read by Lars Havstad, himself deaf and a pioneer when it came to education of the deaf in Norway. Havstad's brother-in-law, Elias Hofgaard, was the administrator of the Hamar Institute for the Deaf and Havstad wrote to Bergh suggesting he contact him.

Hofgaard agreed to accept Kåta as a student and the state agreed to pay for her. On 15 January 1888 Kåta was followed by her father to school for the first time. She was fourteen and it was a difficult transition. She was suspicious of all strangers, and did not tolerate being touched. At times she bit, screamed, and clawed. Undeterred, Hofgaard finally managed to calm her down and she eventually trusted first him and then others to be around her.

Hofgaard had employed the "speaking method" on very talented deaf students with good results, still it surprised many when he declared that he would use the method with Kåta. He reasoned that a deaf and blind child would have most use of learning to speak (rather than using e.g. the finger alphabet). Hofgaard first taught Kåta to pronounce the letters, then to combine two letters into a syllable, and finally multi-syllabic words before trying to attach meaning to what had until then been presented as a complicated game. The first words used were: ur (watch), fot (foot), and bord (table). The words were associated with the objects over several days until Ragnhild understood that the words named the object. After that she learned to understand others by placing her hand on their lips as they spoke, she learned to write, and to read Braille.During the summer of 1889, Kåta met with Mary Swift Lamson (1822-1909) who had taught Laura Bridgman at the Perkins School for the Blind. At that time, Mrs. Lamson reported that Kåta could already speak simple sentences. In 1890, ten-year-old Helen Keller was introduced to the story of Ragnhild Kåta and was inspired by her ability to learned to speak.


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