Tag: Feeding

CVI Mealtime Strategies

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As soon as I received my daughter’s Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) diagnosis in 2018, I began researching, reading, and brainstorming ways to help her begin using her vision throughout her daily routines (you can check out my introductory CVI reading recommendations here). 

The very first adaptation I can recall implementing was the mealtime strategy of placing a shiny, red gift bow on the handle of Rosalie’s spoon (I think I got this idea from reading the Little Bear Sees book?). At the time, Rosalie was 7 months old and her mealtimes consisted largely of being fed purees on a spoon. Prior to my learning about CVI, she never seemed to open her mouth in anticipation of the spoon; rather, she would open her mouth only after I gently touched the spoon to her lips. In hindsight, it’s pretty obvious that she didn’t see the spoon coming! 

Fast forward to placing a red, shiny bow on her spoon…and voila! Rosalie began opening her mouth as I brought the spoon towards her. That first easy adaptation literally changed our lives – and reminds me that even the simplest changes can be made to provide my daughter access to the visual world.

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Our CVI mealtime strategies have evolved numerous times throughout the past 2+ years, so today I’m sharing some of what has worked for us. Perhaps it will spark new ideas for your own mealtimes!

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CVI Phase I-II Adaptations (aka what I’ve been doing for the past month)

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We received our daughter’s CVI diagnosis on May 7, 2018. This piece was originally published on my personal family blog on June 7, 2018. It led me to believe that sharing our everyday CVI strategies has the potential to inform and help other CVI parents. Because it served as a catalyst in the creation of Everyday CVI, I have decided to re-publish it here as a starting point in this new space dedicated to our everyday CVI adaptations. I hope it is helpful to you in some small way!

Today marks one month since we received our daughter’s Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) diagnosis. One entire month since we learned of our daughter’s disability – a disability of visual access. Thankfully we have a pediatric ophthalmologist that rightly informed us upon giving the diagnosis that it is a visual impairment that can be improved with proper interventions (how frustrating for so many CVI parents that they were wrongly misinformed by medical and educational professionals from the get-go and took years of fighting and researching to get to where we are now!).

Still, the basic information I was given at the eye doctor in no way revealed to me that CVI was so complex – and the intervention methods she listed were barely the tip of the iceberg of what we could be doing for our sweet Rosalie. But, because she gave me the most crucial information about CVI that so many parents are not given – the fact that we CAN do things to improve her vision (technically, how her brain understands vision since her eyes work fine) – I went home and got to work researching. In other words, I was able to immediately dive headfirst into medical research and advocacy mode for my daughter….

First, I visited the website Little Bear Sees, which helped me begin to see the magnitudinal impact CVI has (and will have) on my daughter’s everyday life – but it also helped me start to digest the message that there were several things I could truly (and inexpensively) begin implementing immediately(!) to help my daughter better “use” her vision, thus making important neural connections in her brain.

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