For more than a quarter of a century, Ildefonso, a Mexican
Indian, lived in total isolation, set apart from the rest of the
world. He wasn't a political prisoner or a social recluse, he
was simply born deaf and had never been taught even the most
basic language. Susan Schaller, then a twenty-four-year-old
graduate student, encountered him in a class for the deaf where
she had been sent as an interpreter and where he sat isolated,
since he knew no sign language. She found him obviously
intelligent and sharply observant but unable to communicate, and
she felt compelled to bring him to a comprehension of words. The
book vividly conveys the challenge, the frustrations, and the
exhilaration of opening the mind of a congenitally deaf person
to the concept of language. This second edition includes a new
chapter and afterword.