narrator: paul molloy has usher syndrome. he is profoundly deaf and legally blind. he and his wife, who is also deaf, have two children who are hearing and sighted. paul lives on long island and commutes daily to manhattan, where he works at columbia university. paul learned he had usher syndrome while attending college when he was 19 years old. at this point in his life, he has only a pinhole of vision left and uses a cane to assist him with travel. with usher syndrome, your vision is always changing, especially as you get older. some of these changes will have a significant impact on your life. i call these changes hits. for example, in your teen years, you start to experience night blindness where you lose the ability to travel independently or safely at nighttime. narrator: lauren is 13 and, like others with usher syndrome, is experiencing early night blindness. often, this is exhibited by a child tripping or bumping into things or, in general, being viewed as clumsy. i did notice that what i thought was her balance wasn't where it should be and that she seemed t