by Terri Doss

Created on: March 02, 2009

Helen Keller once said, "Knowledge is love and light and vision." The Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind has been educating blind, deaf and/or multi-disabled children and young adults for over 150 years in this same spirit. This SACS-accredit organization also offers adults work opportunities and senior citizens an improved quality of life. The AIDB serves its students through the Alabama

School for the Deaf, the Alabama School for the Blind and the Helen Keller School of Alabama.

Spread out over five campuses and nine regional centers, the AIDB prepares their students to live as confident and productive citizens in the sighted world by providing a head start with the world's most comprehensive education and rehabilitation program. As Helen Keller once said, "I cannot believe parents would keep their deaf or blind child at home to grow up in silence and darkness if they knew there was a good school in Talladega where they would be kindly and wisely treated."

The AIDB was founded in 1858 by Dr. Joseph Henry Johnson, born out of his strong devotion to his younger brother, William, who was born deaf. Although Dr. Johnson graduated from medical school, he elected not to pursue a medical career, instead deciding a career in education so that he could help his hearing-impaired brother. Since its inception, AIDB has grown from a school for deaf children to the multi-service and multi-facility organization that it is now, winning numerous grants from many organizations throughout the past 150 years. Here in the technology age, AIDB faculty and staff are at the forefront of testing adaptive equipment as soon as it becomes available, from flashing kitchen timers to computer programs that read text aloud.

The Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind offers its participants both day school and live-in options and its services are free to Alabama residents who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, deaf-blind and visually impaired. With services going out to more than 12,500 individuals each year in all 67 counties of the state, providing services such as early intervention, counseling, interpreting, transportation and other daily living and adjustment programs, the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind does the state of Alabama proud in its continuing and successful efforts to educate, empower and support children and adults with sight and hearing impairment.

A comprehensive overview of AIDB's services can be found at www.aidb.org, or they can be reached by phone at (256) 761-3200.

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