cortical visual impairment – Page 8

Text Project, a tool for getting started with salient features

The Text Project, Animals of All Shapes and Sizes

Salient features and comparative language are critical strategies for children who have cortical visual impairment (CVI) (Thank you, Dr Roman-Lantzy). For my young son who has CVI, I always tell educators and new team members, These strategies – salient features and comparative language – are how my son learns to make sense of what he is looking at. These strategies are how he learns to make visual sense of the world. Figuring out salient features is harder than you think. The website, Text Project, Word Pictures can be a good place to start. Thanks to Judy Endicott for sharing this resource. Continue reading “Text Project, a tool for getting started with salient features” →

September is CVI Awareness Month

September is the first official CVI Awareness Month. Cortical visual impairment (CVI) has been the leading cause of visual impairment in children in the U.S. since the 1990s. CVI is the public health crisis that you haven’t heard of. For parents of children with cortical visual impairment, every day – every medical appointment, every school meeting, every therapy appointment, every inquiry from a well meaning, random stranger – is about CVI Awareness. Continue reading “September is CVI Awareness Month” →

Back to school with Phase III CVI, christine roman, cortical visual impairment, education, Phase III CVI

Back to school with Phase III CVI

Back to school: Phase III CVI — Back to school with Phase III CVI

Back to school means, once again, thinking about how to explain cortical visual impairment (CVI) to educators who are new to your child’s educational team. When your child is in Phase III CVI (Roman-Lantzy) this means starting with the basics – the CVI ten characteristics, the three Phases and their goals, and the CVI guiding principles – then making the light speed jump to Phase III CVI and why it is different. Continue reading “Back to school with Phase III CVI” →

cortical visual impairment, CVI, novelty, Novelty is a Great Big Deal (moving with your child who has CVI), parents, Phase III CVI

Novelty is a Great Big Deal (moving with your child who has CVI)

Moving is hard. Yesterday was about learning what a Great Big Deal the CVI characteristic of novelty still is for my son who has cortical visual impairment (CVI). After driving across the country, itself an exercise in novelty, among many other things, our belongings arrived in a small portion of a vast shipping container. Prior to its arrival, we talked about having our “stuff” again. For several days, we occupied our new home with limited possessions and no furniture. It was the perfect low complexity environment for a child in Phase III CVI to learn about and explore a new living space. Continue reading “Novelty is a Great Big Deal (moving with your child who has CVI)” →

"What does my child with CVI see?", cortical visual impairment, Phase III CVI, sensory complexity, sensory processing

“What does my child with CVI see?”

These days are more about what does he experience, instead of what does he see

When your child is diagnosed with cortical visual impairment (CVI), you cannot help but ask, What does my child see? As a parent it was hard to even wrap my brain around the words “cortical visual impairment” – or “cortical blindness” – the first time the neurologist said them. Along with the outdated term cortical blindness came other misinformation such as “because it involves the brain and not the eye, there is nothing you can do.” Some people like to say that having CVI is like looking through a slice of Swiss cheese, which does not fly because the eyes work together to create the image in your brain and those gaps get filled in. Others claim that the world appears pixellated to people who have CVI, except that your brain is not a computer. It is far easier to simulate an ocular impairment – such as the grossly distorted world of somebody with myopia. Or the blacked out central vision of a person with progressive macular degeneration. But what does a child with CVI see? Continue reading ““What does my child with CVI see?”” →