Deafness and rubella: infants in the '60s, adults in the '80s.

Abstract

The significance of the substance and the urgency of the timing of this conference, Deafness and Rubella: Infants in the '60s, Adults in the '80s, is attested to by the impres- sive array of its sponsoring agencies. We are grateful for their encouragement and support. I trust that our efforts will prove worthy of their sponsorship. Although the subject of maternal rubella and its consequences for its victims and for all con- cerned with handicapping conditions has been of continuing professional concern to me, it has not led to the kinds of intensive interest and depth of knowledge that are represented by other conference speakers. Other demands on my time and energy have simply taken precedence. But I discovered that deeply seated in my consiousness were two personal experiences that suggested at least a point of departure, if not a scholarly base, for a keynote which con- ventionally demands presentation of issues of primary interest to an assembly and attempts to arouse unity and enthusiasm. The first of these experiences was my conver- sation with Helen Keller more than 40 years ago—in 1939, to be exact—when she was our guest of honor on occasion of the 25th anniver- sary of the founding of Central Institute for the Deaf. I recall vividly how this remarkable deaf-blind woman placed her fingers on my lips and face and her thumb on my throat in order to perceive and then to comprehend my utter- ances which she did flawlessly. That this con- ference is being held in the year that observes the centennial of her birth is indeed fortuitous, and it should inspire us to approach our agenda with confidence and hope. Given the complex- ity of the problem that brings us together and the difficulty of its solution, this attitude is in- dispensable to the attainment of the conference objectives. The other experience I offer as a credential that qualifies me for this assignment took place in the early forties. Recall that it was in 1941 that Gregg (1941) first described the association of congenital cataracts and congenital heart dis- ease with maternal rubella, and it was in 1943 that Swan and his coworkers demonstrated that deafness could also be a component of this entity (Swan, Tostevin, Moore, Mayo, & Black, 1943). Both of these observations were made in Australia. At that time a distraught mother and her deaf 4-year-old son, Jimmy, presented themselves at Central Institute for the Deaf for help with the boy's education. They had come from Australia where the mother was caught in the epidemic of rubella which took place there. To add to the drama of the situation, Jimmy's father did not know of his existence, let alone his deafness, since he was a prisoner of war in Japan. Jimmy spent a little more than 2 years with us during which his mother received much needed guidance, and the foundation was laid for his subsequent education in his na- tive Australia. He went on to become an eco- nomically independent citizen after completing technical training in tool making and mechani- cal drawing. How nicely suited he would have been to the offerings of our host institution which in staging this conference expresses its concern for all the Jimmys of the 1980s.