Bridge to Life Services @The Bridge School

Bridge to Life CVI Services @The Bridge School

The ultimate goals of Bridge to Life include:

  • serving individuals with physical and/or communication impairments from birth through adulthood, locally, nationally and globally 
  • providing professional development opportunities in our areas of expertise 
  • contracting with families, agencies and school districts to offer direct services to students with severe physical impairments and complex communication needs

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Webinar 9: Effective Interaction Strategies for Children with CVI and CCN

CVI@The Bridge School

Adapted AAC-CVI Framework – Adapted from work at Penn State University

Latest Events CVI@The Bridge School

2023 Summer Workshop – Addressing the Needs of Students with Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) and Complex Communication Needs (CCN) in the Classroom Setting.

The Bridge School is excited to announce the AAC-CVI Framework, adapted from work at Penn State University.

Presenters

Aileen Arai

Aileen has been a Special Educator for 27 years. She has been designing and supporting staff in implementing strategies that support students, parents, districts, and all members of a student’s educational team in the development of curriculum within the Common Core State Standards for students with significant physical impairments who use AAC systems. Since 2012 she has been addressing intervention strategies and assessments as they relate to Cortical Visual Impairment protocols and tools developed by Dr. Christine Roman-Lantzy. She received The Perkins-Roman CVI Range Endorsement from The Perkins School for the Blind, an authorization that supports her evaluating a student’s CVI for purposes of ongoing intervention.

Gabriela Berlanga

Gabriela Berlanga, is a Speech and Language Pathologist and is the founder and consultor for CATIC in Mexico City, current Associate Executive Director at the Bridge School and Vice-President for Conferences at ISAAC (The International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication).  Founder and member of the North American Alliance for Communication Access.  Consultant for the Special Education Technology Department @prende of the Ministry of Education in Mexico. She has collaborated with Dr. Christine Roman-Lantzy serving students with Cortical Visual Impairments who use AAC since 2011 as part of CATIC’s International Collaboration Program run by Dr. Sarah Blackstone.  

Dr. Vicki Casella

Dr. Vicki Casella has been involved in the education of children and adults with special needs for over 55years.  Her professional experience includes classroom and clinical teaching, public and private school administration, and university teaching and administration.  She has taught at the University of Alabama, the University of Nevada, Reno, and San Francisco State University.  While a professor in the Special Education Department at San Francisco State University, Dr. Casella initiated the first adaptive technology academic courses in the United States.  Her areas of expertise were focused in teacher preparation in deaf/hard of hearing, learning and multiple disabilities and she was the Director of the Deaf and Hearing-Impaired Program.  For the past 21 years she has served as the Executive Director of The Bridge School, a special school dedicated to ensuring that children with severe physical impairments and complex communication needs develop the education and communication the skills they need to become active participants in their communities and that the effective strategies employed at The Bridge School are disseminated throughout the national and international community.

Outline

  1. Integrating Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) intervention into The Bridge School’s Educational Program 
  2. Barriers for students with CVI and how we learned more
  3. Identification
    • Introduction to CVI
    • CVI
  4. The CVI Range Assessment
    • The 10 Characteristics of CVI: Description, assessment, and examples
  5. Assessment as a Team: The Importance of Family and the School Team
  6. The CVI Range Assessment as a guiding principle
    • The 3 CVI Phases  
    • Examples of Environmental, Material, and Teaching Accommodations in the classroom
  7. Addressing the communication needs of children with CVI
    • What the current research is telling us 
    • Factors involved
    • Receptive language
    • Expressive
  8. Examples of classroom interventions
    • Accommodations
    • Environmental
    • Teaching Strategies
  9. Intervention Implementation
    • Pre-School
    • Developing Literacy
    • Developing Mathematics
    • Developing Language and Vocabulary for Home, School and Community: Interaction Strategies
    • Developing Goals and Daily Schedules using Multiple Learning Media and Sensory Balance
  10. Pulling it all together: Case Examples, Ongoing Research and Further Investigations 
  11. Plans for integrating CVI interventions into your practice