Tag: Holidays

Celebrating Halloween (CVI style)

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Happy Halloween!

Two of the “10 characteristics of CVI” are color and complexity. This means bright, highly-saturated hues that are solid colors (with little or no patterns) tend to be easier for someone with Cortical Visual Impairment to visually process.

Red is one of the first colors our brains learn to process as infants, so it’s no wonder Elmo is often a favorite of little ones with CVI! He is solid, bright red and easily identifiable with his simple eyes and big, orange nose.

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Pictured: little girl dressed in an Elmo costume, surrounded by 4 Elmo dolls.

Another CVI characteristic is novelty, which means a child with CVI will be drawn to the familiar since new people/places/things are much more challenging to visually process. Someone with CVI cannot simply “look” and learn what something new is; they must learn the distinct, salient features that categorize objects for what they are, which means new things require building a new framework of understanding in the brain…whereas familiar objects are ones the brain has already learned to “see” (process).

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14 More Gifts for a Child with CVI

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In recent weeks I have shared my daughter’s 10 Favorite Light-Up Toys and some holiday activity, gift, and dollar store ideas for children with Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI). But, I feel compelled to build on these posts and share some wonderful new items because my daughter, Rosalie, just received several Christmas gifts that I have been able to seamlessly incorporate into her everyday life with CVI – in play time (the best therapy!), bath and dressing routines, scheduled therapies, and when we are on-the-go (car rides, stroller rides, medical appointments, etc.).

I hope this list of 14 “CVI-friendly” gifts sparks some ideas for those of you seeking holiday, birthday, or “just because” gifts for your loved one(s) with CVI.

FYI: Rosalie is currently in Phase II CVI, is 15 months old, and is not fully mobile (but can roll/do tummy time and is working so hard on sitting independently and the pre-crawling “quad” pose). Some of these items may be more appropriate if any of these things are also true of your child with CVI, but some can be used by a child of any ability in any of the 3 Phases of CVI. Without further ado, here are 14 fantastic gifts my daughter received for Christmas.

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Happy Halloween (with a little CVI adaptation)!

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Happy Halloween! I have a handful of upcoming posts that I have not yet had time to finish, but I figured I would at least pop in to share one special way I have incorporated Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) into our family’s Halloween decorations this year.

My husband and I began a yearly tradition of visiting a pumpkin patch (or, during the busiest years, a store that sells pumpkins) and painting a pumpkin for each person in our family. We were unable to paint pumpkins last year because we were a little bit busy with a certain newborn (cough, Rosalie), but we managed to resume the tradition this year – hooray!

I always get to paint the baby’s pumpkin, so you’d better believe I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to advocate and raise awareness for my daughter! Check out how I painted Rosalie’s pumpkin:

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Pictured on the front is clearly Rosalie’s initial…but I took advantage of Halloween’s CVI-friendly color scheme to highlight an adaptation for teaching a child with CVI how to read! The black background with a white letter surrounded by a bubble of bright, high-contrast color (like orange) is a key adaptation that – paired with appropriate descriptive language – can help a child with CVI begin to see the salient features of a letter (or word’s) shape.

And check out how I managed to sneak in a little extra CVI advocacy on the back….

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#EverydayCVI #StartSeeingCVI #CorticalVisualImpairment #CVI

Rosalie is only a year old and will stay home while her big brothers go out trick-or-treating, so we do not yet have to worry about the complexity and sensory array of costumes or trick-or-treating (thank Goodness). But, for future reference I would love to learn about your own Halloween-related CVI adaptations!