Why is Helen Keller story significant?

As a child deprived of sight and sound, her whole world was tactile, meaning that all she knew was what she could feel. Miss Sullivan had to break through the barrier of no meaning to Helen's world and give her a reference point. When Helen finally made the connection between the Word spelled in her hand and the water flowing over her other hand, she suddenly had a reference point to her world, meaning that items had names. With a name to a thing, it is a short step to expressing all knowledge through language. Miss Sullivan gave Helen the gift of language with the incident with the water.