In a story that echoes that of Helen Keller, Betteridge's teacher Roberta Reid fingerspelled words into her pupil's hand, until Betteridge made the connection between the words spelled and the objects she was touching. The breakthrough came when Reid spelled the word ``shoe'' while placing a shoe in Alice's hand. Her education then progressed rapidly, and in a few short months she knew 200 nouns and several verbs, including ``run,'' ``jump,'' and ``laugh,'' and soon began learning to read braille.
Reid
Alice