For 10-year-old Annabeth Fahey, discovering a new sport has opened her world to a new passion, community and lifestyle. Annabeth has low vision and is fast becoming a champion goalball player, much to the delight of her mum Meredith and the rest of her family.

Annabeth’s vision loss was discovered during her four-year-old eye test at daycare.

Further testing found Annabeth had dislocated lenses due to Marfan syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects connective tissue—which, in addition to vision issues, can impact the heart and blood vessels, lungs and skeleton. Annabeth’s symptoms include low vision, weakness in her limbs, and difficulties with her fine and gross motor skills.

For Annabeth’s parents, her diagnosis meant navigating a new world of appointments to support her development and maximise her functional vision and independence. The family live in Sydney’s Blue Mountains and chose NextSense as it offered easy access to services through our Werrington centre in Western Sydney. From there, they access yearly functional vision assessments with her orthoptist, Alison, and fortnightly physiotherapy services with Christie.

Christie specialises in working with children who have vision and hearing loss. She helps Annabeth improve her gross motor skills and strengthen her body so that she can enjoy being more active and independent.

‘She’s never been able to play team sports, as they are too dangerous because of her vision difficulties,’ says Meredith. There is also a challenge with running speed and reflexes, she says.

But after watching goalball being played on an episode of Playschool one day, the family thought the sport might be a good fit for Annabeth. Goalball is specifically designed for athletes who are blind or have low vision, with participants throwing bell-embedded balls within a court with tactile markings and wearing blackout eyeshades to ensure a level playing field. In 2022, Meredith found out about a NSW Goalball Come and Try day for the sport, and decided to take Annabeth along.

‘It was a really good day,’ says Meredith.

It didn’t take long before Annabeth was hooked—as was Meredith, who says she’s since made many friends herself through the sport—and the family turned to Christie to help develop her strength and skills to prepare her for the court.

Christie, who previously worked as a physical education teacher, says visual rewards are an important motivator for sighted children to keep active. It can be more difficult for those who have low vision or are blind, so it’s crucial to find other ways to motivate them and provide targeted support through engaging and appropriate activities that consider their vision loss.

Christie’s sessions with Annabeth teach her to move safely and focus on different parts of her body to ensure she works on all her muscle groups and motor skills. She incorporates obstacle courses and goalball-based games that include throwing, blocking and getting on and off the ground.

Usually conducted at our Werrington centre, Christie has also joined Annabeth on the goalball court to watch her in action and tailor her therapy accordingly. Meredith and Christie say they have noticed a big improvement in Annabeth’s strength, confidence and throwing skills—which are all essential for goalball. Annabeth says while the sessions can be hard work, Christie also always makes sure to include something fun, like letting her sit in a hammock.

‘We’ve actually got a really nice rapport with Christie,’ says Meredith. ‘It’s great that she understands the vision side [of physiotherapy].’

Annabeth’s hard work has paid off, with her team winning Gold at the 2024 NSW State Goalball Championships. They also took away Silver at the Australian Goalball Championships in Adelaide last year, which—along with a particularly memorable pasta restaurant—was a highlight. She says she loves the goalball community and being able to play a sport that suits her, and can’t wait for this year’s championships in October.

And Annabeth is making sure it’s not just the human members of her family getting behind the sport—she’s named her cat Tinkerbell after the Australian youth girls goalball team, the Aussie TinkerBelles.