KELLER,HELEN AS COGNITIVE SCIENTIST

Nature's experiments in isolation-the wild boy of Aveyron, Genie, thei r name is hardly legion-are by their nature illusive. Helen Keller, bl ind and deaf from her 18th month and isolated from language until well into her sixth year, presents a unique case in that every stage in he r development was carefully recorded and she herself, graduate of Radc liffe College and author of 14 books, gave several careful and insight ful accounts of her linguistic development and her cognitive and senso ry situation. Perhaps because she is masked, and enshrined, in William Gibson's mythic and false Miracle worker, cognitive scientists have y et to come to terms with this richly enlightening, albeit anecdotal, r esource.