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SWOMA 2016
Cracker Barrel Session Notes
Cracker Barrel Session: Cortical/Cerebral Visual Impairment (CVI) and
Multiply Impaired Visually Impaired (MIVI)
Facilitator: Carolina Gonzalez
Notetaker: Kate Hurst
What works
 Connection (relationship) with the student is critical ---- you have to
work on that first. Observe and learn preferences.
 Check out Active Learning Space – www.activelearningspace.org
 Make movement meaningful, purposeful and age appropriate
 Communication – routines help and use object symbols, calendars at
their developmental level
 Building rapport with the whole team so you get reinforcement from
the whole team (including the family)
 Infuse skills throughout the day in all activities
 Make sure the team understands the modifications and strategies so
they can support them
 Finding what they (CVI) attend to and modify or engineer the
environment.
 Remember movement activates vision with CVI often.
 Used big noisy toy cars that were very motivating and moved to
motivate the child with CVI
 Use Little Room in both lying down and also in sitting position and do
work on tummy time (Support Bench for example).
 Get buy in from all stakeholders and make sure to get them on the
same page with goals.
 Parent buy-in and support. They may or may not have expectations
and not know how to implement strategies or feel there is no hope.
 Remind parents they can grow in skills. Don’t sell them short.
 Pacing is so important……wait, wait, and wait.
 Videotaping is so helpful to you with your pacing and also to gage
progress.
 Please remember to communicate clearly with the parents at home
about the importance of O&M.
 Share pictures and videos home to show what the child is doing.
 CVI can be so prescriptive and we forget to look at what they like,
especially when doing evaluations and in developing programming
strategies.
 Repetition is very important
 Give him the opportunity to be independent, see where he goes
 Walk together sharing umbrella, cane, cart, etc. to work on grasp or
to get attention on where they are working
 CVI- using metallic marker or movement and tie with maybe auditory
or tactile cues
 Persistence and family support to follow through at home – CVI
 Help the parent see the connection between their goals for the child
and the skills the child needs to learn to get to that starting from
where the child is now
 Understand what is motivating the family related to the child
 All things are related to O&M all day throughout the day
Image 1,
SWOMA Logo, SWOMA in print and braille, along with stick figure woman holding a cane and a stick figure man with a dog guide