The impact of cerebral visual impairment on scholastic competence tests in grade 1 children

Scientific Conference (2023, July 25)

Purpose: Cerebral vision impairment (CVI) refers to a disturbance in visual processing related to damage to the visual areas in the brain and/or visual pathways. It is commonly assumed that CVI underlies ... [more ▼]

Purpose: Cerebral vision impairment (CVI) refers to a disturbance in visual processing related to damage to the visual areas in the brain and/or visual pathways. It is commonly assumed that CVI underlies functional vision difficulties, affecting the way individuals use their visual skills and abilities to perform daily tasks. Recent research estimated that around 3% of mainstream educated elementary school children have CVI. Experimental research shows that CVI negatively impacts specific learning processes linked to mathematics and reading. This study aimed to clarify how CVI impacts children’s performance at school, in children’s natural educational environment. Methods: As part of the Luxembourgish school monitoring program, the complete cohort of first graders (N = 5536) participated in three standardized pen and paper competence tests administered by the teacher in their classrooms. The stimuli were visually displayed for the areas of mathematics and early literacy. For listening comprehension, the stimuli were presented via an audio file. The complete cohort also completed questionnaires collecting motivational and background information (gender, home language). Parents further provided information on migration background, socio-economic status and parental education. Next, a representative sample of this cohort (n = 1129) individually participated in a visual competences’ screening led by a team of clinical experts. The screening included a neuro-visual assessment (Evaluation of Visuo-Attentional Abilities battery, including 9 subtests) as well as optometric and orthoptic assessments. Based on the experts’ clinical screening outcome, the sample was split into children with CVI (n = 38), children with optometric and orthoptic diagnoses (n = 201) and children without CVI (n = 890). Results: The analyses focused on the comparison between typically developing and CVI children. The results from multiple regressions showed that CVI children obtained significantly lower scores than children without CVI for mathematics and early literacy but not for listening comprehension, when controlling for background characteristics (gender, socio-economic status, migration background, parental education, and home language). Listening comprehension was however a significant predictor for mathematics and early literacy for both groups when controlling for background measures. More concretely, the explained variance of these models was higher for CVI children suggesting that they highly depend on auditory compensation strategies to complete written achievement tests. Conclusions: The prevalence rate for CVI was 3% within the representative sample confirming internationally reported rates. These results confirm the impact of CVI on learning processes in a school related environment and emphasize the need for the implementation of an early systematic identification of children at risk. The results on the use of compensatory auditory strategies stress that these children would benefit from an alternative presentation of their school material, allowing to build on these students’ strengths and provide them with a fairer assessment. [less ▲]

Implementation of a large-scale functional vision screener in early childhood at a national level

Scientific Conference (2022, November 10)

Functional vision refers to the way in which an individual uses visual skills and abilities to perform everyday tasks. Limitations on the functional use of vision can interfere with school achievements if ... [more ▼]

Functional vision refers to the way in which an individual uses visual skills and abilities to perform everyday tasks. Limitations on the functional use of vision can interfere with school achievements if left undetected. Early detection is thus key to offer appropriate aids to avoid a negative impact on learning processes. To screen for functional vision impairments at a national level, we developed a set of items measuring visual skills that can be administered in a classroom setting to be included in the yearly school monitoring tests ‘ÉpStan’ in grade 1. Children identified as being at risk will be followed by the Centre pour le Développement des compétences relatives à la Vue (CDV, MENJE). Based on a theoretical model of visual perceptual processing (Humphreys and Riddoch, 1987), we developed 35 items that were pretested. The same first graders (n = 1034) were administered group tests with the newly developed items and existing standardized individual tests (by CDV clinicians). Based on the clinical outcome of the CDV, the items which best predicted functional vision impairments were selected to be implemented in the Luxembourgish school monitoring in grade 1, together with a validated short parent questionnaire (Gorrie et al., 2019). This talk will focus on the development of the screener and on the characteristics of the children with functional vision impairments. [less ▲]

Development of a large-scale screener for functional vision impairments in early childhood

Scientific Conference (2021, October 21)

Cerebral Visual Impairment (CVI) is a term used to designate a neurological disorder of the visual pathways impacting visual processes at any given level (Lueck et al., 2019). Due to the advances in ... [more ▼]

Cerebral Visual Impairment (CVI) is a term used to designate a neurological disorder of the visual pathways impacting visual processes at any given level (Lueck et al., 2019). Due to the advances in perinatal and medicinal care, CVI’s occurrence has increased significantly over the last years (Chokron & Dutton, 2016). The condition almost always entails aggregated functional vision impairments, i.e., limitations on the use of binocular vision during everyday tasks (Dutton, 2015). CVI can have effects on school achievements if undetected. Early detection is thus key to offer appropriate aids to avoid a negative impact on learning processes. The aim of this project is to develop a large-scale screener at the beginning of formal schooling, to identify functional vision impairments early on. For this reason, a set of items assessing different visual functions will be incorporated into the Luxembourgish school monitoring program. Based on a theoretical model of visual perceptual processing (Humphreys and Riddoch, 1987), we developed timed and non-timed items that can be administered in a large-scale classroom setting which target different stages of visual perceptual processing. Furthermore, we included visual functions connected with both dorsal and ventral streams, visual spatial processing, visual exploration and visual memory. We will present the design of the large-scale screener in relation to the theoretical model, as well as the rationale used to include or exclude various perceptual visual functions in the final test. Furthermore, we will explain the planned data collection and tool validation processes. [less ▲]