When people describe Taylor Cox, they use the word “pathfinder.” Born blind due to a birth defect, she has not only learned to advocate for herself to succeed in life, but from an early age she has also helped others understand what it means to be blind. One example: her older sister is sighted, and when Taylor was in third grade, she spoke to her sister’s fifth grade class to tell them about braille. “I read a few things to them and showed them some of the cool technology I used,” Taylor says. That helped them understand that she and other kids with low vision or blindness were no different than their sighted peers, except that they had special skills, like using braille to read and a white cane to navigate the hallways.
When Taylor was 12, she started speaking at technology conferences to teach adults what it was like to grow up blind. “My first presentation was about how I would get through the school day,” Taylor says. “Parents with kids who are blind are dying for information,” says Mike Cox, Taylor’s dad. “They want to know what their kids will be able to do.” Taylor was, in many respects, the poster child for what a child who is blind can accomplish, including mastering the piano, learning to read music with braille, performing since she was five, getting good grades in school, and going off to college in 2022.
Braille Institute has been a constant in Taylor’s life since shortly after she was born. Until she went to preschool, Braille Institute staff members visited the Cox home frequently. For Taylor’s mom, Kim, a public school teacher and adjunct faculty in education at Santa Ana College, Braille Institute was an important resource. “We didn’t know what to do and wanted to make sure she was building skills,” Kim says, who remembers how the staff helped Taylor to overcome her fears and learn how to explore the world with her hands.
From those early years, Taylor joined the Braille Institute youth group, participating in the music program, going on outings, taking cooking classes, and also competing for 12 years in Braille Challenge, the annual international youth competition that promotes literacy skills. “One year I was sick and my mom said she didn’t think I should go,” Taylor says. “I said, ‘I have to go.’ I was begging to take a test. OK, this is weird, but I’m taking a test with my friends and we’re messing around, and Braille Institute makes it really fun. Those are my favorite memories.”
“Those programs were lifelines for Taylor to have blind peers,” Kim says. “She was the only blind kid in public school, so Braille Institute offered peer support with other blind kids whom she could bond with. And I would meet those kids’ parents, creating a community. It was monumental what Braille Institute did for us at that time.”
Taylor studied in community college for three years, and when she enrolled at Biola University in 2025 to pursue a bachelor’s degree in music therapy, Braille Institute sent an orientation and mobility specialist three times to help her learn to navigate the campus. “Braille Institute taught me how to be independent,” she says.
No matter how well prepared for college you think you are, being away from home on an unfamiliar campus teaches you that you sometimes have to advocate for yourself. Taylor mostly reads in braille, and when she recently had to accompany a clarinetist on piano, she was initially not provided with a braille version of the sheet music. “They said, ‘Can you just memorize it from YouTube?’” Taylor says, though the school offered to have another pianist assist her. “I’ve had to do a lot of advocating for myself, because I don’t have an amazing team of blind experts around me anymore that knows exactly what I need.”
The teams at Braille Institute that helped Taylor left a strong impression on Mike and Kim, who are sustaining donors, meaning that they give to Braille Institute every month. “When Taylor was younger we would have been lost without Braille Institute,” Kim says. “Because of that, we’ve stayed connected.”
As Taylor looks ahead to her career, it’s with excitement and not trepidation. “I’ve known since high school that I wanted to become a music therapist,” Taylor says. “I’ve gotten a lot of help from people, so the fact that I can help others is very exciting for me. I get to reach them with music. It could be anyone from a baby in a neonatal intensive care unit to adults dealing with autism or blindness or people in hospice care. It’s a wide range of people I could help.”
