The Hidden Epidemic: Cortical Visual Impairment in Children with Pamela Shanks

Pamela Shanks joins the Voices in Montessori podcast to share information about Cortical Visual Impairment, an underdiagnosed learning difference that affects as many as 1 in 30 children in mainstream classrooms. CVI is often ignored, missed, or misdiagnosed as low vision, behavior problems, or learning disorders. CVI is a neurological visual processing disorder.

While classroom guides are not diagnosticians, you don't need a diagnosis to begin implementing classroom interventions. In this episode, Pam shares just a few of the 47 strategies (offered in Chapter 5 alone!) that classroom teachers can use to support students with visual processing challenges. These include simple interventions, such as changing the color of the work rug, showing pictures differently during read aloud time, and pairing visual tasks with motor ones.

Pam's new book, The Montessori Approach to Classroom-Based Interventions: A Handbook for Educators, Administrators, Service Providers, and Families of Children Whose Development is Impacted by Delay or Disability, addresses a variety of learning differences and provides a multitude specific strategies to use in the classroom to support students.