When administering the direct assessment portion of The CVI Range, several tools and strategies are employed to evaluate how viewing characteristics of CVI manifest for the individual student.  The assessment outcomes determine what attracts a student’s visual attention or helps maintain their gaze so that educational materials and environments can be appropriately adapted (Roman-Lantzy, 2007).  Although much can be determined in the direct assessment, we rely heavily on vision reports from the student’s ophthalmologist or vision clinic, information gleaned from the parent interview and our classroom observations to supplement and enhance our evaluation.

In consultation with Christine Roman-Lantzy, we developed this process for conducting the direct assessment of The CVI Range:

1. Prepare the Room for Direct Assessment.
2. Engage the student in activities to assess the visual characteristics of field preferences, color preferences, movement, light and visual latency.
3. If appropriate, continue with activities to assess the visual characteristics of visual complexity, distance viewing and novelty.