Helen Keller was born healthy, but an illness when she was still an infant left her blind and deaf. For many years Helen was stuck in a silent world with no opportunities to learn how to communicate. Helen's parents hired a woman who was legally blind herself and had just become certified as a teacher to try and teach Helen to interact with the rest of the world. At first it seemed this effort would be fruitless, but Annie Sullivan would eventually be able to break through into Helen's world and teach her to communicate via a type of sign language done against the hand so that Helen could feel the movements. Helen would continue to learn, eventually becoming an accomplished writer. Helen wrote her autobiography and this was used as the basis for the play The Miracle Worker. While doing this play on Broadway, portraying Helen, Patty Duke would get the opportunity to meet her.