Month: November 2018

10 Favorite Light-Up Toys

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One of the ten characteristic visual behaviors of Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) is “light-gazing” or “attention to light.” My daughter, Rosalie, is at a point on the CVI Range where she does not need light (or low lighting) to visually attend to things, but lights can still be hugely beneficial for her visual attention. So, today I’m sharing some of her tried-and-true favorite light-up toys!

Because the multi-sensory input of lights AND music playing at the same time can be too complex for some children with CVI to process visually, I’ve broken down the list into the categories of “musical” and “non-musical” for easier reference. Fair warning, though: Rosalie LOVES music (it’s one of her favorite things), so this list is heavy on the musical light-up toys. And speaking personally, I cannot handle toys that make a bunch of obnoxious sound (Goodness knows my 3 kids make enough noise on their own!), so almost every musical toy we have plays classical music – because that is one thing I can handle (and even enjoy) listening to over and over and over and over….

MUSICAL LIGHT-UP TOYS

1. Baby Einstein Glow and Discover Light Bar Toy

LightBar-wm

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Everyday Advocacy (Our Story + Tips)

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I created Everyday CVI to share the ways our family embeds CVI strategies into our everyday life, so most of what I write will focus on tangible items and how we have used them specifically. However, I have found my free time tied up lately as I have been taking care of some other “everyday CVI” work that all CVI parents need to address on an ongoing basis. I’ve been in the trenches of CVI advocacy.

It recently dawned on me that the practical ways in which I have been advocating for my daughter to receive appropriate vision services is very much a part of our “everyday” with CVI…so why not write some of it down to share with others? As always, I cannot promise that anything I share here will be relevant or helpful to any reader’s specific situation, but at the very least I hope that sharing our story’s recent progress will serve to inspire other parents to NEVER STOP SEEKING THE APPROPRIATE RESOURCES AND/OR ACCOMMODATIONS YOUR CHILD WITH CORTICAL VISUAL IMPAIRMENT NEEDS.

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? I’ll do my best to summarize our CVI advocacy journey thus far with a few practical suggestions thrown in the mix.

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