It has already been a very merry Christmas for one 11-year-old girl in Lauderdale County.
Thanks to the efforts of Sight Savers America, Kalee Guin, who suffers from a severe visual impairment, received life-changing assistive technology on Thursday at her home on Wesley Chapel Road. If seeing is believing, then watching Kalee read without losing her place was a miracle in the making.
“When she first used the device in the doctor’s office in October it was a huge difference,” said Guin’s mother, Sally Long. “We believe this will be the answer to her problems of reading.”
Guin was referred to Sight Savers America by Dr. Dawn DeCarlo at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Center for Low Vision Rehabilitation. Guin was born with cerebral palsy. She also has strabismus and optic atrophy, resulting in low vision. Low vision is a medical term defined as “chronic disabling visual impairments that cannot be corrected with glasses, contact lenses, or medical or surgical treatment.”
“She can see fine to move around. It is just when she tries to read her school work or read a book where the problem really is pronounced,” said Long.
“I’m so happy to get this,” said Guin, as she watched representatives with Sight Savers set up the monitor and camera system. “I love math and I think this will really help me do my homework much better.”