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Living with blindness in Alaska presents innumerable challenges for the visually impaired.

Maria Maes, a third-grader at Kalifornsky Beach Elementary School, faces many of those challenges every day, and is learning to overcome them.

She isn't on her own, however. She's getting some help, both human and non.

Lynne Koral, of Anchorage, like Maes, suffers from Retinopathy of Prematurity, a disease that affects the eyes of babies born premature.

For Koral and Maes, the disease cost them both their vision.

Koral visited Maes at her school this week to spend some time with her.

"I'm mostly helping her with Braille and reading comprehension and encouraging her just to be the person she is," Koral said.

Koral, originally from New York City, explained that Alaska can be a difficult place to live for the visually impaired.

Just trying to get around can be tough.

"We don't have as many sidewalks, we don't have the kind of public transportation we have in larger cities, we don't have as many people who teach us how to travel independently," she said.

With few blind living up here, and the state still young, Koral said there are few amenities or resources for the blind.

But Koral isn't the sort of person to let her blindness get in the way of her goals.

"With challenges come opportunities," she said.

Koral recently worked as a legislative intern for Sen. Bettye Davis, D-Anchorage, making her the first legally blind person to work in the state Legislature in any capacity.

She said she's also provided with the opportunity to educate others on issues for the visually impaired, as well as work with young people like Maes.

There's a wealth of technology available in the digital age to cope with the loss of sight, too, some new, and some ancient.

One of the focus points of Koral's visit with Maes was to share their experiences with the BrailleNote.

A BrailleNote is like a laptop computer for the blind.

Instead of having an LCD screen that pops open, however, it has a refreshable Braille screen and an audio component. It's a bit smaller than a laptop so it travels easily, and performs a number of functions from word processing to surfing the Internet.

It's invaluable for letting Maes do her class work.

Peggy Jones, an aide who works with Maes, explained that she takes worksheets assigned to Maes' classmates, scans them through a computer program that converts the text on the page to Braille, makes a few corrections, and downloads it to the BrailleNote, where Maes can complete the assignment with the rest of the her class.

When she's done, she hooks the BrailleNote up to a printer and passes it in.

The BrailleNote also can download books in electronic form so she can keep up with her reading.

Maes was perhaps most excited about the gaming options, which allow her to play first-person, interactive, fiction games. Following a story line, she must make decisions based on situations.

As she plays she also gets a chance to practice her reading with the Braille screen.

The BrailleNote can only go so far, though.

"It can't read pictures, it doesn't have a screen," Maes said.

Picture- or diagram-heavy worksheets might be more interesting for her classmates, but for Maes, they're of little use.

Koral said the way technology has changed the face of education for the blind is fantastic.

When Koral was in school she had to rely on tape recorders and cassettes.

"To me, just listening isn't as good as reading in Braille, seeing how things are spelled and reading at your own pace," Koral said.

Maes agreed.

But the technology doesn't always provide the answers.

Maes recently learned to use an abacus, an ancient calculator that uses beads representing different numbers, arranged on rods.

Jones laughed that she and Maes learned how to use the old technology together.

Though her BrailleNote has a calculator function, the abacus allows her to do addition and subtraction, and soon enough multiplication.

Maes is reaching a point where she's ready to grow intellectually by leaps and bounds.

She doesn't, for example, consider herself lucky to not have homework after school.

Maes' teacher, Shelli Furlong, explained that just as Maes will learn her multiplication tables next fall, she'll soon pick up more responsibilities.

Furlong said she's been impressed by Maes' enthusiasm to learn and take on new challenges, saying, "Whatever we give her, she goes with."

"Maria is at a major cognitive trajectory right now, she's going straight up," she said.

Dante Petri can be reached at dante.petri@peninsulaclarion.com