Guide to the Helen Hulick Beebe Papers, 1927-1998

Manuscript group number: 324

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The Pennsylvania State University
Special Collections Library
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Descriptive Summary

Administrative Information

Arrangement

The collection is organized into six series: 1. Helen Beebe Speech and Hearing Center; 2. Publications/Articles/Journals; 3. Audio-Visual; 4. Emil Froeschels; 5. Speech and Hearing Organizations; 6. Helen Beebe Personal Files.

Biographical Note

Helen Hulick Beebe was one of the pioneers of the Unisensory Approach, now known as the Auditory-Verbal Approach, to training the hearing-impaired. Through this method, children diagnosed as profoundly deaf were trained to acquire spoken language and natural intonation. Max Goldstein originally put forward the principle that powerful hearing amplification, in the form of binaural hearing aids, could help even a profoundly deaf child to develop and use whatever small amount of residual hearing he or she might possess. By covering her mouth while speaking, Beebe forced the student to process spoken language through the ears, rather than lip-reading, and use his or her hearing aids to the fullest extent.

Beebe was taught by the eminent Viennese physician and speech pathologist, Dr. Emil Froeschels, whom she later assisted at Mount Sinai Hospital for a span of twenty-five years. She once stated that one of the most impressive things she learned from Froeschels was his application of the Chewing Approach to voice problems, such as stuttering. Beebe modified this method for her deaf students, helping them to attain natural-sounding speech. Although she never observed a clinical case during her studies, Froeschels taught her the theory of his teacher, Victor Urbantschitsch, that intensive stimulation of small remnants of residual hearing could result in spontaneous speech development. Beebe later found that experimentation with this theory proved it to be true among her own students.

One such student was Marjorie (Mardee) Crannell. A neighbor in Easton, PA consulted Beebe about her 15-month-old daughter, who was suspected of being deaf. If the application of Froeschels' teachings did not succeed, the Crannell family's only other alternative was to send Mardee to an institution away from home at the age of four. The only evidence of residual hearing was determined by Froeschels' direct tone introduction test using the Urbantschitsch whistles. At the time, hearing aids had just barely become wearable and consisted of a very powerful aid with a microphone in the front pocket of a jacket and the batteries in the back pocket. To introduce Mardee to sound via her ears before the hearing aid was worn regularly, her mother was given a speaking tube devised by attaching a kitchen funnel at one end of a piece of rubber tubing and an ear olive at the other; speech (babbled phonemes) was delivered through the tube all day long. In addition to this, Mardee's mother was given home instruction and Beebe made regular house visits.

At the age of three, Mardee began coming to Beebe's office 3 times per week for 45-minute therapy sessions. During these sessions, Beebe combined what she had known about teaching language in oral schools with what she had learned from Froeschels about delayed speech development. Mardee's vocalizations were modulated by using vocalized chewing, an extension of the Chewing Approach Beebe had learned from Froeschels. Mardee's first spontaneous meaningful utterance was the greeting, "Hi" with natural intonation (natural melody was always encouraged). Beebe stressed that she should associate with her hearing peers and eventually enter a hearing school; Mardee's parents enrolled her at a private nursery school, where Beebe instructed the teacher in the Chewing Approach. This was Beebe's first successful case and led to her renown and eventually many more cases.

To allow more clients to be trained at the clinic, the Larry Jarret House was started, thanks to the work of the parents of a former patient, Edmond and Susan Jarret. The house allowed people from afar to come and learn about the unisensory approach, even though many of them did not have trained therapists at home to carry on the therapy when they returned. Its purpose was to "promote the Helen Beebe philosophy of unisensory training and to make this training available to all hearing-impaired children." Despite the numbers of outside people she could help as a result of the Larry Jarret House, Beebe recognized the need for more therapists of the Unisensory Approach and helped spread its reputation by teaching graduate students from Penn State University and Temple University and training approximately 75 students through internships at the center.

During her lifetime, Beebe was awarded the Commendation of the Senate of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1974), the Key to the City of Easton (1974), the Sertoma Club of Easton's "Service to Mankind" award (1980), the Allegheny Regional Sertoma award (1980), the Eastern Pennsylvania-New Jersey District Sertoma award (1980), the Sales and Marketing Executives of Easton Area Distinguished Citizen Award (1983), the New York League for the Hard of Hearing's Nitchie Award in Human Communications (1983), the Delaware Valley Mensa Achievement Award (1985) and the Alexander Graham Bell Association Honors of the Association (1987). She was also listed in Pennsylvania Women in History (AAUW publication) (1983) and recognized as one of the Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania (1986). She was the annual Easton Area High School Day honoree and Honor Alumnus (1982) and was given an honorary doctorate by Lafayette College (1985).

Beebe was life member of the American Speech and Hearing Association; member of the Pennsylvania Speech and Hearing Association, the Northeast Pennsylvania Speech and Hearing Association, the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf, and the International Association of Logopaedics and Phoniatrics; she served on the honorary board of the Auditory Educational Clinic and on the advisory board of the Foundation for Children's Hearing, Education and Research; and was one of the founders of the International Committee on Auditory Verbal Communication and Auditory-Verbal International.

The 1986 book by David Colley, Sound Waves, featured the story of one of Beebe's students and her path to speech through training by the Auditory-Verbal method. It includes some further biographical information on Beebe.

Biographical Chronology

Scope and Content

The Helen Hulick Beebe Papers consists of personal and professional papers, articles and newsletters, photographs and videos collected by the speech pathologist and associates of the Helen Beebe Speech and Hearing Center, spanning the years 1927 to 1998. The six series are divided mainly by information pertaining to the Helen Beebe Speech and Hearing Center, Emil Froeschels, other speech and hearing organizations, Helen Beebe's personal files, and by various media.

Of particular interest to the researcher of the Auditory-Verbal Approach are the multiple videos of Helen Beebe's students in training and her vast collection of articles and newsletters on the topic of Auditory-Verbal and Unisensory therapy and theory. For information on the status of the approach throughout the United States during the 1980s, see the applications for membership in the International Committee on Auditory-Verbal Communication, where each applicant has been asked to describe in detail the extent of his/her auditory-verbal practice. In addition, the controversy over the approach can be gleaned from Helen Beebe's correspondence publicizing and defending the method.

Other valuable aspects of the collection are the teaching materials for language and speech development and those on lip-reading, tongue-thrusting and the Chewing Method actually used by Helen Beebe and the therapists at the Helen Beebe Speech and Hearing Center. Although researchers may be more interested in learning of the Chewing Method established by Emil Froeschels, it is rather the files on lip-reading that are the most extensive.

It is important to note that the personal files on Helen Beebe serve more to understand her professional career than her personal life, including such files as biographies and In memoriam writings at the time of her death, describing her career more than her character. However, this may be due to the considerable amount of personal time she devoted to the Helen Beebe Speech and Hearing Center and her clients, rather than a gap in the collection.

In this guide, the Helen Beebe Speech and Hearing Center is abbreviated HBSHC; the International Committee on Auditory-Verbal Communication is abbreviated ICAVC; Auditory-Verbal International is abbreviated AVI.

Index Terms

These materials are indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Pennsylvania State University. Researchers wishing to find related materials should search the catalog under these index terms.

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