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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, inspiring Helen Keller to do the same. ==Early life== Ragnhild Kåta was born at Kåtaeiet in Vestre Slidre. 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, 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).〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=DigitaltMuseum: Ragnhild Kåta (1873–1947) og Elias Hofga... )〕 Hofgaard first taught Kåta to pronounce the letters, then to combine two letters into a syllable, and finally multisyllabic words before trying to attach meaning to what had until then been presented as a complicated game. The first words used were: (watch), (foot), and (table). The words were associated with the objects over several days until Ragnhild understood that the words named the object. After that there was no stopping her. She learned to understand others by placing her hand on their lips as they spoke, she learned to write, and to read Braille. When Kåta met with Ms. Lamson (Helen Keller’s teacher) during the summer of 1889 she could already speak simple sentences. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ragnhild Kåta」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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