Sophia Alcorn

Sophia Kindrick Alcorn (3 August 1883 to 28 November 1967) was an educator who invented the Tadoma method of communication with people who are deaf and blind. Born in Stanford, Kentucky, she trained in teaching the deaf at the Clarke School in Northampton, Massachusetts, and taught at the Kentucky School for the Deaf in Danville from 1909 to 1920. There she first developed the method while teaching Oma Simpson, the school's first deafblind student, using a system of touch on the cheek and neck that let the child imitate how words are spoken. Oma was the first deafblind person in the world to be educated orally. Alcorn advocated for the rights of people with disabilities and, after retiring from teaching, worked with the American Foundation for the Blind.