For more than a quarter of a century, Ildefonso, a Mexican Indian, lived in total isolation, set apart from the rest of the world. He wasn't a political prisoner or a social recluse, he was simply born deaf and had never been taught even the most basic language. Susan Schaller, then a twenty-four-year-old graduate student, encountered him in a class for the deaf where she had been sent as an interpreter and where he sat isolated, since he knew no sign language. She found him obviously intelligent and sharply observant but unable to communicate, and she felt compelled to bring him to a comprehension of words. The book vividly conveys the challenge, the frustrations, and the exhilaration of opening the mind of a congenitally deaf person to the concept of language. This second edition includes a new chapter and afterword.
Our ability to speak, write, understand speech and read is critical to our ability to function in today's society. As such, psycholinguistics, or the study of how humans learn and use language, is a central topic in cognitive science. This comprehensive handbook is a collection of chapters written not by practitioners in the field, who can summarize the work going on around them, but by trailblazers from a wide array of subfields, who have been shaping the field of psycholinguistics over the last decade. Some topics discussed include how children learn language, how average adults understand and produce language, how language is represented in the brain, how brain-damaged individuals perform in terms of their language abilities and computer-based models of language and meaning. This is required reading for advanced researchers, graduate students and upper-level undergraduates who are interested in the recent developments and the future of psycholinguistics.
The definitive history of the societal forces affecting blind people in the United States and the professions that evolved to provide services to people who are visually impaired, The Unseen Minority was originally commissioned to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the American Foundation for the Blind in 1971. Updated with a new foreword outlining the critical issues that have arisen since the original publication and with time lines presenting the landmark events in the legislative arena, low vision, education, and orientation and mobility, this classic work has never been more relevant.
This philosophical treatise on the foundations of semantics is a systematic effort to clarify, deepen and defend the classical doctrine that words are conventional signs of mental states, principally thoughts and ideas, and that meaning consists in their expression. This expression theory of meaning is developed by carrying out the Gricean programme, explaining what it is for words to have meaning in terms of speaker meaning, and what it is for a speaker to mean something in terms of intention. But Grice's own formulations are rejected and alternatives developed. The foundations of the expression theory are explored at length, and the author develops the theory of thought as a fundamental cognitive phenomenon distinct from belief and desire, argues for the thesis that thoughts have parts, and identifies ideas or concepts with parts of thoughts. This book will appeal to students and professionals interested in the philosophy of language.
All the amazing facts in this book are strange but true. With clever, yet easy-to-understand visual comparisons, you will make sense of things that seem too bizarre to be real. In It Can't Be True! 2, you can see a hippo's mouth large enough to swallow a car, a truck strong enough to carry 90 elephants, and a jellyfish longer than three blue whales. Plus, did you know that all the world's continents could fit into the Pacific Ocean? Or that all the world's trees could fill North and South America combined? These concepts are brought to life with fascinating CGI artworks. Find out how much paper you'd need to print out the World Wide Web (hint: it's a stack taller than the height of Earth's globe), how much sweat your feet produce in a day (it could fill a glass), and much more in this collection of weird facts and world records from planet Earth and space, animals and plants, people, and technology. If you think it can't be true, It Can't Be True! 2 will prove that it is!
An inspiring picture-book biography of Louis Braille—a blind boy so determined to read that he invented his own alphabet. **Winner of a Schneider Family Book Award!** Louis Braille was just five years old when he lost his sight. He was a clever boy, determined to live like everyone else, and what he wanted more than anything was to be able to read. Even at the school for the blind in Paris, there were no books for him. And so he invented his own alphabet—a whole new system for writing that could be read by touch. A system so ingenious that it is still used by the blind community today. Award-winning writer Jen Bryant tells Braille’s inspiring story with a lively and accessible text, filled with the sounds, the smells, and the touch of Louis’s world. Boris Kulikov’s inspired paintings help readers to understand what Louis lost, and what he was determined to gain back through books. An author’s note and additional resources at the end of the book complement the simple story and offer more information for parents and teachers. Praise for Six Dots: "An inspiring look at a child inventor whose drive and intelligence changed to world—for the blind and sighted alike."—Kirkus Reviews "Even in a crowded field, Bryant’s tightly focused work, cast in the fictionalized voice of Braille himself, is particularly distinguished."—Bulletin, starred review "This picture book biography strikes a perfect balance between the seriousness of Braille’s life and the exuberance he projected out into the world." — School Library Journal, starred review
What better gift could Our Lady have given us than the Rosary? The Rosary is Sacred Braille in that it is a miraculous juxtaposition of a language of prayer we can feel with our hands, joining word to touch. It is the Rosary to which our fingers may cling, as our flesh craves something tangible. The decades of the Rosary can be thought about, and, quite literally, felt, at the same time. While contemporary society separates the idea of "thinking" and "feeling," Scripture unites all functions in the heart. If we meditate on the words, "Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart," (Lk 2:19) the thinking and feeling functions are joined. The Rosary, through engaging both thought and touch, unites our spiritual and physical natures; our thinking and feeling faculties.
The incredible life story of Haben Girma, the first Deafblind graduate of Harvard Law School, and her amazing journey from isolation to the world stage. Haben grew up spending summers with her family in the enchanting Eritrean city of Asmara. There, she discovered courage as she faced off against a bull she couldn't see, and found in herself an abiding strength as she absorbed her parents' harrowing experiences during Eritrea's thirty-year war with Ethiopia. Their refugee story inspired her to embark on a quest for knowledge, traveling the world in search of the secret to belonging. She explored numerous fascinating places, including Mali, where she helped build a school under the scorching Saharan sun. Her many adventures over the years range from the hair-raising to the hilarious. Haben defines disability as an opportunity for innovation. She learned non-visual techniques for everything from dancing salsa to handling an electric saw. She developed a text-to-braille communication system that created an exciting new way to connect with people. Haben pioneered her way through obstacles, graduated from Harvard Law, and now uses her talents to advocate for people with disabilities. Haben takes readers through a thrilling game of blind hide-and-seek in Louisiana, a treacherous climb up an iceberg in Alaska, and a magical moment with President Obama at The White House. Warm, funny, thoughtful, and uplifting, this captivating memoir is a testament to one woman's determination to find the keys to connection. "This autobiography by a millennial Helen Keller teems with grace and grit." -- O Magazine "A profoundly important memoir." -- The Times ** As featured in The Wall Street Journal, People, and on The TODAY Show ** A New York Times "New & Noteworthy" Pick ** An O Magazine "Book of the Month" Pick ** A Publishers Weekly Bestseller **
