Identifying and characterising cerebral visual impairment in children: a review

Abstract

Cerebral visual impairment (CVI) comprises visual malfunction due to retro‐chiasmal visual and visual association pathway pathology. This can be isolated or accompany anterior visual pathway dysfunction. It is a major cause of low vision in children in the developed and developing world due to increasing survival in paediatric and neonatal care. CVI can present in many combinations and degrees. There are multiple causes and it is common in children with cerebral palsy. CVI can be identified easily, if a structured approach to history‐taking is employed. This review describes the features of CVI and describes practical management strategies aimed at helping affected children. A literature review was undertaken using ‘Medline’ and ‘Pubmed’. Search terms included cerebral visual impairment, cortical visual impairment, dorsal stream dysfunction and visual function in cerebral palsy.

Is there consensus in defining childhood cerebral visual impairment? A systematic review of terminology and definitions

“…In future. consensus may move towards a classification system with subgroups within the umbrella term of CVI,3 depending on further empirical research. However.…”

Probabilistic maps of the white matter tracts with known associated functions on the neonatal brain atlas: Application to evaluate longitudinal developmental trajectories in term-born and preterm-born infants

“…Visuomotor skills were often impaired in preterm-born children (Atkinson and Braddick, 2007; Van Braeckel et al, 2008), while motion response, measured by visual event-related potentials, was delayed in preterm-born infants (Atkinson and Braddick, 2007); both suggest an impaired dorsal visual stream, which is congruent with the altered V1/V2 – V5/MT+ demonstrated in our study. Dysfunction of the dorsal visual stream is known in diseases, such as Williams syndrome (Atkinson et al, 2001) and autistic spectrum disorder (Pellicano et al, 2005), and a relationship between the structural impairment and dysfunction in visual perception and visual-guided movement has been postulated (Philip and Dutton, 2014). The probabilistic map developed through this study has the potential to accelerate research in the field of visual processing by introducing a way to quantify anatomical abnormalities in the dorsal visual stream.…”

Cerebral versus Ocular Visual Impairment: The Impact on Developmental Neuroplasticity

“…First, it should be considered that brain injury in CVI may also affect areas beyond those ascribed to visual processing. Indeed, children with CVI often present with other neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy, seizures, or cognitive and developmental delays related to the location of brain damage (Huo et al, 1999; Philip and Dutton, 2014). With this taken into account, it is important to note that the terms cortical and cerebral fail to capture the possibility of more global neurological injury (Good, 2007).…”

“…From a public health perspective, CVI represents a pressing issue as it is now the leading cause of congenital visual impairment in children in developed countries including the United States (Good et al, 1994; Huo et al, 1999; Hoyt, 2007; Kong et al, 2012; Philip and Dutton, 2014). In the United Kingdom, CVI is the predominant disorder affecting up to 40–48% of the impaired children younger than 15 years old (Rahi et al, 2003; Rahi, 2007).…”