This was Christine and Charles Todd's experience almost fifteen years ago after their ninth child Katie was born.

"Although we had been concerned with Katie's development and reaction to stimuli, it was a shock when Katie was first diagnosed at six months to be profoundly deaf," says Christine Todd, "and a further shock to find out at eight months that she was blind as well.

"It took some time for us to come to terms with Katie's dual sensory loss, but then we just wanted to find out all we could about it."

They learnt that Katie has absolutely no hearing in either of her ears and that the eye condition creating her blindness is coloboma of the retinas.

For Katie this means that she has very, very slight peripheral vision in her right eye and her left eye has retinal pits - black spots in her field of vision - with tiny 'islands' of sight in between. With the limited sight Katie has, she does not enjoy the same depth of vision or 'three dimensional' element that most people do.

"It amazes everyone that somehow, Katie has managed to maximise the tiny amount of vision she has left," says Christine, "and she uses this residual vision and her sense of touch to help her communicate with the people and environments around her."

Katie communicates using New Zealand Sign Language, and her primary communicator has been working with her since she was three years old.

"She is a wonderful woman who has not only stuck by Katie through primary and into secondary school, but has also helped other teachers at Katie's school to learn sign language as well.

"I believe this has made a huge difference to Katie's schooling and educational opportunites."

Katie attends Paraparaumu College's special needs unit and her favourite subjects are art, horticulture, cooking and PE. She has a teacher's aide alongside her to assist her understanding and a PE programme has been specially designed to meet her needs.

Katie can read normal school textbooks, but it is a hugely time consuming exercise and one in which she is often lagging behind.

"The big question for all of us," says Christine, "is what will Katie do with her life once she finishes school?"

"Something like horticulture would be good, we could help her with growing and selling plants or she might be able to work in a plant nursery."

In the meantime, in her spare time, Katie loves going swimming and is well known at the local pools. She uses an inner tube for floatation and kicks her way up and down.

Christine says that Katie also has an unusual fascination for car tyres, "She loves the feeling of the tread and I sometimes wonder if she can identify the taxis she goes to school in by their tyre tread - as she checks them out before she gets into the taxi!"

Without a doubt, however, Christine and Charles know that Katie's biggest challenge is and always will be communication.

"Because of her dual sensory loss, we notice that outside of the family and immediate school contacts, Katie finds it extremely difficult to make friends with others.

"In many ways she is still quite 'closed off' and finds it easier to stay in her 'safe areas' - environments and situations she is familiar with - as much as possible.

"As a family, we try and encourage Katie to extend herself - to try new experiences and test herself beyond what she thinks she is capable of."

Katie's whole family (including two brothers and five sisters) use sign language to communicate with Katie, and Christine believes that they are better off for the experience.

"Whilst teaching Katie, we have learnt so much ourselves," she says.

"Knowing Katie has let us into a world that we would never have become involved with. We taught her how to use touch to enjoy textures - warm, cold, soft etc - and in doing so learnt to appreciate these things for ourselves.

"I have found that Katie has taught me to stop and be aware of things that really matter in life and not be embarrassed when what we have is different from how the world likes to see things. "She has taught us patience...I think!"