Cerebral visual impairment (sometimes called cortical visual impairment or CVI) is a disorder caused by damage to the parts of the brain that process vision. It’s most common in babies and young children, but can continue into adulthood.

CVI is a lifelong brain-based visual impairment, caused by damage to the brain’s visual pathways or visual processing areas. People with CVI struggle with visual attention and visual recognition resulting in a lack of access for understanding the world around them.

Cortical visual impairment (CVI), and cerebral visual impairment (CVI), are terms often used to describe visual impairment that occurs because of injury to the brain, as are neurological vision loss, and vision loss due to traumatic brain injury (TBI).

CVI is a condition in which damage to the retro‐chiasmic visual pathways results in the disruption of normal visual processing. 1 While severe cases of CVI (previously called ‘cortical blindness’) were considered uncommon, CVI is now considered the most common cause of childhood visual impairment in the developed world. 2, 3, 4 It arises from conditions which cause abnormal development of, or damage to, the brain, affecting the visual pathways and disrupting normal visual function.

Cortical visual impairment (CVI) is a disorder caused by damage to the part of the brain that processes vision. It is more common in children than adults. CVI is a leading cause of permanent visual impairment in children in the United States.