Cortical Visual Impairment and Visual Attentiveness: The Effect of Visual and Cross-Modal Environments on Children Diagnosed With Cerebral Palsy and Cortical Visual Impairment

This study will investigate the effect of enhanced visual and cross-modal environments upon the visual attentiveness of multiply handicapped children diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy (CP) and Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI).

Research Hypothesis

1. Adapted visual environments which present controlled auditory, tactile, proprioceptive or contrasting visual background stimulation will enhance the visual attentiveness to a given visual stimulus of children diagnosed with CP and CVI.
2. Systematic, repetitive, visual stimulation over time, improves the visual attentiveness and/or visual-motor responses of CP-CVI children.
3. The analysis of additional behavioral responses to visual stimuli is a critical component in evaluating the perceptual development of visual attention in CP-CVI children.

Use of Noldus: The Observer, an advanced objective computerized observation program, will enable precise detection of the neurobehavioral responses of the participants. Both overt and covert responses will be observed, analyzed and correlated to identify the level of attention of each participant.