Tag: Around the Home

What’s In Our Playroom?

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Spend any time in an online forum with parents of children with Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI), and you’ll see a common theme that gets asked repeatedly. It’s also something I have been asked many times through the blog and/or the Everyday CVI Instagram page.

“What toys does your child like?”

Of course, each person with CVI is unique – and just because one child gravitates to a particular toy doesn’t necessarily mean that another child with CVI will be equally interested in it. But more often than not, children that are in similar CVI Phases and/or have comparable mobility tend to enjoy related toys/activities (which surely stems from the fact that there are 10 shared CVI characteristics).

At some point I planned to write about the incredible birthday gifts Rosalie received when she turned 2, the amazing Christmas gifts from last year that enhanced our everyday play, and (most recently) my all-time favorites from her 3rd birthday…but despite my best intentions, life happened and here we are entering the end-of-year holiday season of 2020 and I have yet to impart this information. But all of that changes today!

Without further ado, I’ve compiled a giant list of all the wonderful toys I’ve been meaning to share about for months. The easiest way for me to do this is to simply share about what’s currently in our playroom! It’s not practical or helpful for me to list literally every single thing in the room, especially because I have other children that play with things that are not visually accessible to Rosalie. Rather, I’m sharing all of the things Rosalie actually plays with and/or I’m working on intentionally introducing (you know, novelty).

Let’s get to it!

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Using Wall Decals to Promote 2D Processing

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Happy CVI Literacy Awareness Month!

When it comes to Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) and literacy, it’s important to understand that anything we do to promote looking, visually recognizing, and interpreting what the eyes are seeing is creating a path to literacy. 

What do I mean by this?

To briefly summarize: CVI is a brain-based vision impairment. The eyes are healthy and function normally, but the brain has difficulty processing and understanding what the eyes see. But, how an individual with CVI uses and functions with their vision can improve as the brain makes new connections, learning to recognize and better interpret more visual input.

So, if you think about it, literally any time we get a child with CVI “looking” we are working towards literacy. A child must be able to look at something, maintain visual focus, and begin recognizing and interpreting what they are looking at in order to achieve literacy.

Keeping this in mind, I am always looking for creative ways to increase my daughter’s opportunities to use her vision throughout our everyday routines. Right now this means creating additional ways to get my daughter, Rosalie, looking at (and recognizing) more 2D images.

A recent strategy I’ve been using to promote extra 2D processing is: using wall decals around the house!

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Highlighting Objects Around the Home

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This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no cost to you.

As my young child with Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) has become progressively mobile, it has become increasingly important for me to think about what I can do to help her visually orient herself within our home.

You may recall that some months ago I began using washi tape (like this glittery set) to highlight some light switches with pops of sparkly color. This provided a fun visual and fine motor activity of turning light switches on and off while I necessarily carried my daughter, Rosalie, from room to room with me. So, it was only natural for me to start looking around at other things it would make sense to highlight as Rosalie began moving around the house more independently.

Where did I begin? For starters, I gathered my supplies: scissors and tape. Really, that’s all it took!

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Pictured: white scissors and a roll of shiny, red duct tape.

As you will see, I ended up using various kinds of tape on different surfaces – depending on the material, color, and what the purpose of the tape was. Pictured above is a shiny red tape, similar to this one found on Amazon.

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Creating a Felt Wall

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As my daughter with Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) has progressed further into Phase II, I find myself constantly searching for new ways to integrate her vision with everyday functions. There are all kinds of ways to visually adapt Rosalie’s everyday “free play” time (creating defined spaces, providing toys and an environment that address the ten characteristics of CVI, etc.), but one tool I created specifically for this purpose is: a felt wall.

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What is a “felt wall,” you ask? Well, it’s exactly what it sounds like. Instead of making a “felt board,” I selected part of a wall in our play room to cover with felt. This provides a sturdy back-drop on which I can display any number of felt pieces.

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Highlighting Light Switches

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My daughter with Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) recently TURNED OFF HER BEDROOM LIGHT SWITCH FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME! To be clear, I was holding Rosalie in my arms when she flipped the switch – so no, my child who is not yet fully mobile did not suddenly learn to climb. 😉

This seemingly “simple” task is often taken for granted by parents of typically-developing children, but the rest of us probably know and understand what an accomplishment this is for a child with a vision impairment (and the delayed fine motor skills that result from it).

How did we achieve this particular skill? Well, it started with me thinking of things her brothers liked to do for fun at her age and then creating a goal to help her build the functional vision and fine motor skills to do one of those activities: flipping light switches up and down!

Rosalie is achieving milestones at her own pace, but her desire (and need) for constant play and learning is no less than it is for my other children. I knew that turning off her bedroom light switch would not be as “simple” as it was for her brothers, but I made it a goal nonetheless. And not only are light switches fun, but turning them on or off is a useful everyday life skill. Win-win!

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Creating Defined Spaces for Play

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Within days of receiving Rosalie’s CVI diagnosis I made a mental list of all the places she regularly spends time (the crib, high chair, car seat, bathtub, etc.) so I could think of how to make those spaces more visually accessible to her (which you can read more about here). We were very home-bound when she was little, due to many factors relating to medical complications combined with my sheer terror when I thought about the possibility of her (or her big brothers!) getting sick that fall/winter/spring. But, because Rosalie has two big brothers we necessarily spent a great deal of time engaged in free play throughout the house.

We clearly have two spaces in which the boys regularly play, depending on what time of day it is: the designated play room (located upstairs) and the living room (located downstairs near the kitchen). These were the two rooms in which I would spread out a big baby blanket and create a “play space” for Rosalie as she grew, so the obvious next step after learning about her CVI was to make both of those baby play spaces easier for her to see. I really don’t think I had even learned the visual term “defined spaces” yet, but it made perfect sense to minimize the complexity of these spots where I would regularly lay her down with some toys.

The living room was pretty easy, because I had already naturally carved out a little safe space for Rosalie where her brothers quickly learned to stop running, slow down, and be extra careful (we had made strict rules early on about not getting on her baby blanket without asking my husband or me). So, all I needed to do was trade out the blanket for one that is solid black (which I purchased on Amazon). Then, I placed a black tri-fold “science fair” board near the blanket so we could minimize complexity while she was side-lying or doing tummy time.

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Since Rosalie was 7 months old when we received her CVI diagnosis she had long out-grown our “real” baby play mat that came with hanging toy attachments, but her CVI meant that she really needed to have things hanging above her that she could practice looking at. She was not yet mobile (she had started rolling to her sides and a little bit onto her stomach), so having things hanging above one space where she could not move from was an important way to integrate vision into her play time.

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