little four eyes

summer 2008

My name is Tobi and I am the mother of a beautiful, energetic and vision-impaired daughter, whom I will call Z.  This is the story of how we came to learn about Z’s vision impairment.  Unlike most of the visual issues you read about on this site, Z’s primary vision problems lie not with her eyes, or even with her optic nerves, but with her brain.  Her condition is called Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI), and according to at least one source it is the most common cause of permanent visual impairment in children.

Oh, and one more thing: children with CVI are frequently misdiagnosed as having autism spectrum disorders or mental retardation.  This is not to say that autism and/or retardation are never found in children with CVI.   It just means that often the symptoms and characteristics of children with CVI are confused by clinicians and therapists, and the children receive the wrong (or at least incomplete) diagnosis.
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