Abstract
Cerebral visual impairment (CVI) has become the primary cause of visual impairment and blindness in children in industrialized countries. Its prevalence has increased sharply, due to increased survival rates of children who sustain severe neurological conditions during the perinatal period. Improved diagnosis has probably contributed to this increase. As in adults, the nature and severity of CVI in children relate to the cause, location and extent of damage to the brain. In the present paper, we define CVI and how this impacts on visual function. We then define developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and discuss the link between CVI and DCD. The neuroanatomical correlates and aetiologies of DCD are also presented in relationship with CVI as well as the consequences of perinatal asphyxia (PA) and preterm birth on the occurrence and nature of DCD and CVI. This paper underlines why there are both clinical and theoretical reasons to disentangle CVI and DCD, and to categorize the features with more precision. In order to offer the most appropriate rehabilitation, we propose a systematic and rapid evaluation of visual function in at-risk children who have survived preterm birth or PA whether or not they have been diagnosed with cerebral palsy or DCD.
Highlights
FROM VISUAL PERCEPTION TO ACTIONIn the course of child development, vision precedes action, and during its 1st months the baby experiences a visual relationship with the outside world before being able to voluntarily act within it (Itier and Batty, 2009)
A substantial body of literature has described the cognitive limitations of children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD), revealing a cognitive dysfunction profile that is attributable to an impaired information processing system including deficits in visualperceptual and visuo-motor processing (Creavin et al, 2014), attention, planning or working memory, and learning deficits (Wilson et al, 2003; Asonitou et al, 2012; Asonitou and Koutsouki, 2016)
We propose a systematic examination of the visual function in all at risk children before formal learning to read in order to avoid the deleterious effects of Cerebral visual impairment (CVI) on motor, cognitive and social development (Jambaqué et al, 1998; Sonksen and Dale, 2002; Freeman, 2010)
Summary
In the course of child development, vision precedes action, and during its 1st months the baby experiences a visual relationship with the outside world before being able to voluntarily act within it (Itier and Batty, 2009). As Braddick and Atkinson (2013) explain, infants aged between 5 and 18 months show an almost compulsive response to reach out, grasp, and manipulate any small object placed in front of them As these authors discuss, this is a striking motor behavior, but it is a visual behavior reliant upon the dorsal and ventral streams of the visual system (Milner and Goodale, 2008). The predicted location of the ball is provided by prior experiential learning including oculomotor, motor, perceptual and spatial experience (mostly in the frontal and parietal lobes; Machado et al, 2008; Brozzoli et al, 2014). Each affected child has their own unique clinical picture which needs to be identified and individually profiled
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