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This is a school report written by a girl called Kris, about her friend Paige who has aniridia. Not all the information about aniridia and vision is correct however, I thought it was a nice story.

On April 12, 1999 I met a girl that has changed my life in so many ways. Her name is Paige Herman. She was born with the visual impairment known as Aniridia, which is a Greek word meaning "no iris" The iris is a disk of muscle that regulates the amount of light that enters the eye. It is a rare and incurable congenital defect and usually affects both eyes. It affects both of Paige's with the left eye as the most severe. It occurs when the homeotic gene PAX 6 is mutated and the child is born with a partial iris or none at all, like Paige. The iris is the colored portion of the eye, which also allows larger amounts of light in and making them sensitive to light. Another result is an extremely large pupil and a black looking iris. The primary cause is passed on hereditarily any others ways are unknown. With one impairment usually the other senses of the body become more sensitive. In Paige's case her hearing and smelling abilities are above normal.

Some visually impairments have been known to be associated with Wilm's tumor of the kidney, as associated by chromosomal disorders. These eye conditions are some times associated with nystagmus, glaucoma, corneal disease, cataract, lens sublaxation, macula and optic nerve disease. Paige's has had glaucoma and cataracts all her life making her eye's even more impaired.

Paige has had glaucoma since she was six months old, which at that time was controlled by medication. With glaucoma if it is untreated or becomes too serious it may cause blindness. It was called Timoptic, this was diagnosed after Aniridia where Paige had not opened her eyes and her parents and doctor became concerned. As Paige grew up she would want to play during the nighttime in the dark because then the sunlight would not be so bright for her eyes. It takes a great deal for Paige to be able to adjust her eyes for lights on and lights off. Paige's eyes shake without her own control. Paige was implemented into kindergarten at age three to increase her social skills. It defiantly helped with her constant shyness. Once Paige reached elementary school the resources that Paige needed were not provided because the school did not know what she needed. Paige was one of the first students in the school to ever have such an eye condition. Paige was forced to sit in the front row despite whether she could see the board or not. The use of a note taker was used since the first grade. In the second grade the education system thought that Paige should learn how to live in a city. Paige was funded for an orientation and mobility guide. The guide thought that she should learn how to ride city buses even thought she lived in a small farming community and did not need to ride buses like that. The reason for all of this is that they wanted her to learn the aspects of independence and straight out told her and her family that once finished grade twelve she would have to move to the big city. They also where told to change the way things were kept in the house which did not help Paige because it took her this long to figure out where everything was and now she has to start over. They wanted her to learn how to use her white cane but found it uncomfortable. She did have and excellent teachers aid, which was with her until grade five. The school felt that when Paige was in grade one that they should keep her back because it took her longer then the average student to complete the require task even thought she was at the same cognitive level as her peers. The school however kept her back in grade two to teach her "keyboarding" Paige says, "What does a grade two student need with keyboarding". Teachers and classmates became more understanding of Paige from the grades of three to five. The use of large print and note takers were common. In grade four they wanted Paige to use her monocular to take notes from the white board, which was frustrating and the strain on her eyes was too much. Paige tried many different kinds of glasses and magnifiers but they all frustrated her and did not help her see any better. Grade five was an embarrassing time for Paige with the use of three desks one for her computer, one for books and one for work space, Paige was frustrated with sitting in the front of the class because she was unable to see the chalk board to begin with. Paige began to have severe migraines due to the pressure in her eyes and in the summer before grade six Paige went to the hospital for surgery on her right eye, this surgery is known as Trabectulectomy. This is done to drain the fluid from the eyes to relieve the pressure of the glaucoma effects. Several months later surgery was needed in the left eye as well. The use of Braille was thought to be helpful for Paige to read and she learned both grade 1 and grade 2 Braille. To this day she found it a waste of her time because as long as the print was large enough she could read just fine. In Junior High Paige became more independent because she had to move rooms to get to her classes. Paige also had become more advanced with computers and was able to do her assignments more efficiently. In grade eight the school wanted Paige to use a Braille computer and printer; she felt that is was useless so it was later donated to another child that found it more useful in another school. By the ended of grade nine Paige had received a new consultant that is her current one and she suggested leaving the Braille behind, as did her ophthalmologist. Once in high school Paige really got interested in choir and took voice lessons, being that she is visually impaired it never stopped her at this hobby. Once again the use of the white cane was imposed on her as if it was going to give her sight, she felt too independent to rely on this useless object. She felt that it could not talk to her and warn her of dangers as well as a friend or family member could. Grade ten was one of the hardest years for Paige she had no aid for math and struggled to do it on her own. The school that Paige attended had never had someone like herself and once again did not help her out as much as they could have. The stress on Paige's eyes in high school was to blame from all the reading. Helpful teacher aids were provided for Paige's high school duration. By grade eleven Paige was introduced to a CCTV (Closed Circuit Television.) The CCTV enables the student to place textbooks, maps, charts, and other such printed material under a screen and the picture is enlarged. Paige had a technology assessment in grade ten and they concluded that this might be beneficial. She primarily used this device for mathematics and maps. A negative aspect that Paige found was that it was difficult to write her answers onto the sheet because there was simply no room to write.

I began upgrading at Paige's school when she was in grade eleven; I noticed many things about Paige that were relevant to her disorder before I met her. I would see her in the hallways walking slowly and always had her eyes closed. I did not realize that she had a visual impairment until much later. Then in the second semester I had taken a class that Paige was in. I got to know her very well and learned about her eye condition. Paige sees about 5 percent of what her eyes will let her, where we see about 95 percent. The best way to describe it maybe to use the comparison 20/200 vision. Paige is very high functioning for a visual impaired person, and did very well in high school as well as here at Red Deer College where they have been very helpful to the disabled students. Paige's only setbacks are depth perception, the ability to see detail, long distance indentification, and of course the constant eye strain due to all her readings.

Trips to ophthalmologist are frequent for babies and young children as often as once every month. And at Paige's age of 19, she sees the eye specialist every year for a check up to make sure that the pressure in her eyes are not high the average comfortable pressure is from 13 to 19.

The hereditary chances are that there is a 1 in 2 chance of inheritance in pregnancy it is likely that several generations will be affected after initial mutation occurs.

I asked Paige if she preferred visually impaired over the term "blind." She prefers visually impaired over blind because she feels that she is not blind because when you are blind you can't see anything and Paige can see a great deal even with her condition. There are many different degrees of visual impairments from high functions Paige to low functioning where Braille, Seeing Eye dogs, white cane, monocular, and/or strong prescription glasses. Some of the causes of visual impairments are structural impairments or damage to one or more parts of the eye, refractive errors or an inability of the eye to sharply focus images on the back or the retina, or cortical visual impairments, which are due to damage to the part of the brain that interprets visual information. The only things that can be done to lesson the effects of these conditions are surgery, oral medication, eye drops, glasses, magnifiers and personal aids.

Aniridia may appear in one generation and not reappear until generations later.

Aniridics have a difficult time dealing with the sunlight, some like Paige say that the reflection off of the snow is more painful to the eye. Most aniridics wear sunglasses, photo chromatic, transitional lenses or tinted contact lenses to reduce brightness and glare while outside, some like Paige do not like wearing glasses. Some children do not understand the value of the dark glass and they are tied on with elastics to the child.