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# Blind girl sets her sights on national Braille event
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/blind-girl-sets-her-sights-on-national-braille-event/
- Published: 2004-06-26T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T04:37:04.000Z
- Author: John Wood
- Tags: Events, Ocean Park, #archive-import

*10-year-old to test mettle in day-long grammar contest*

OCEAN PARK — Although she’s blind, 10-year-old Kyra Sweeney has managed to achieve what many adults dream of. She’s an avid skier, and an accomplished actor and musician. Today, she’ll test her mettle in a national competition.

Sweeney, a fifth grader at John Muir Elementary School, was one of 12 blind children in her age group from throughout the country selected to represent California in today’s Fourth Annual National Braille Challenge Invitational in Los Angeles.

The day-long event tests reading comprehension, spelling and proofreading. A total of 60 top blind students, ages six to 19, were chosen by qualifying judges earlier this year. Sweeney said Friday she’s “pretty confident” she’ll excel.

“I started in the Braille Challenge when I was in first grade, and I got involved because it was from the Braille Institute” she said. “I didn’t make it to the nationals that time.”

Sweeney has been blind since birth. She suffers from Leber’s congenital amaurosis, a genetically transmitted condition of the retina. Her father Rob, a cinematographer, said he and his wife Barbara, an attorney, both carry the recessive gene, meaning their children have a one in four chance of being born blind.

“She has some light perception — she can tell light from dark, but she can’t see shapes and forms,” said Rob Sweeney, 49, known for his work on films like “Blue Collar,” and independent hits “I’m Losing You” and “The Sleepy Time Gal.”

“She is a very happy girl,” he added. “She amazes us and everybody with her abilities, rather than her disability. She’s very bright and she excels in a school environment. She’s always done exceptionally well and is, at least, I would say, ahead of her peers, in terms of her reading and mathematical abilities.”

The Sweeney family lives in a bungalow on Beverly Avenue near Joslyn Park. Kyra has an older sister named Kiko, 12, who is sighted. With school out, Kyra looks forward to attending a summer camp in Minnesota for blind children.

She plays the piano and flute, and loves to act. She’s appeared in nine musical theater productions at the Creative Kids’ Youth Theater based in West Los Angeles, including playing the lead role of Maria in “The Sound of Music.” Sweeney also is a voracious reader and loves to write. One of her poems, titled “The Circus,” recently was published in the Anthology of Poetry by Young Americans, and Sweeney was featured in a PBS series on literacy called “Reading Rockets: Launching Young Readers.”

All that success has taught Sweeney’s parents a thing or two.

“I didn’t know anything about blindness when we had Kyra and really had no idea what being blind is about,” Rob Sweeney said. “It’s a (challenge), but through proper training and techniques she can do practically anything. That’s the philosophy that we encourage and she embraces. She’s living proof that that is true.”

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/062604-03_02-7.jpg)

(Photo: Carolyn Sackariason/Daily Press)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 26, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/062604.pdf?ref=smdp.com)