[4] After her undergraduate degree, Alexander taught third-grade students in Southern California,[5] when a rare disease caused blood vessels in her retina to break, which eventually led to total blindness.
[6] She told Contemporary Authors, "I was unhappy to leave that last year [of my teaching], when my visual difficulties began.
I entered an excellent training program in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for newly blinded adults.
She has published eight titles as of 2008,[7] including two memoirs, Taking Hold (1994) and On My Own (1997),[8][9] and a young readers' biography of Laura Bridgman.
[7] "Although I don't minimize the challenges of my deaf-blindness," she wrote in 2010, "I do believe that were I to lose all my hearing, I would still find meaning and joy in reading and writing books.