Every weekday at 3:20 p.m., Diane Westphal Newman rushes from work to pick up her daughter, Melissa.

Alison makes soft sounds to herself as she studies this stranger, then approaches and quietly adjusts the ring on my hand.

Her daughter Samantha was born with a lazy eye, and Michele soon realized she wasn’t meeting the normal milestones that her sister Brittney had. At 4 months, a trip to a pediatric ophthalmologist brought an unexpected diagnosis: optic nerve hypoplasia. The condition affects about seven of every 100,000 children born and is one of the leading causes of infant blindness.

“It used to be called septo-optic dysplasia with endocrine dysfunction,” Michele explains. “I wasn’t prepared for it. I knew nothing about it.”

She noticed a change in her son a few days after his 12-month routine checkup. Cade suddenly stopped babbling, pointing and making eye contact.

Born in: Joliet

Here is what an outside panel of judges had to say about this year’s winner:

Each year, to reflect and recognize our audience, we accept nominations from our readers. Editors also designate six nominees a year by highlighting them in our “In Her Own Words” feature.

2011 finalists
Sonja Beach
Vicki Benson
Elise Cadigan
Kay Larrick
Marilyn Hite Ross

Erika Holiday was on a flight to Europe in 2004 with family members when a female flight attendant lavished attention on Holiday’s brother while completely ignoring her and her mother.

Like scraped knees or training wheels, bullying has sometimes been considered a normal part of childhood.