Article
What are compensatory skills and how do they help people with CVI?
How people with CVI use compensatory skills—like touch, sound, and movement—to access their world, information, and gain independence.
What are compensatory skills?
Compensatory skills are strategies and techniques that allow individuals with blindness and low vision the ability to acquire, share and process information, and learn to access and navigate the world.
Compensatory skills are often learned naturally and often don’t require direct instruction. Generally, some examples of these skills include:
- Auditory – hearing, listening, verbal cues
- Kinesthetic – movement, whole body
- Olfactory – smell
- Tactile – touch, hands-on activities, tactile exploration
- Visual – color-coding, memorizing, high contrast, size adjustment, reduce clutter
These strategies are strengths that support learning and can support visual understanding. Compensatory skills are strengths that should be fostered and used for educational and community access.
We learn to understand the world through what we see, hear, and do, and the more we experience something, the better we can make sense of it. The way we react to the world isn’t just hardwired, it grows and changes based on what we’ve been through in life. Everyone has different experiences.
Why are compensatory skills so important?
Compensatory skills and strategies focus on the individual’s strengths to help them learn and become more independent, while also considering how their senses and other skills support their learning. As parents and educators, we need to understand how the individual with CVI uses their senses and both nonvisual and visual skills in order to make learning fully accessible.
We all use compensatory skills.
Take a moment and think about how you might use nonvisual skills throughout your day. Have you ever reached into your bag to feel around for your keys? Do you listen to audiobooks while driving? Have you felt a wall to find the light switch in a dark room?
More examples of everyday compensatory skills:
- Using auditory cues like a coffee maker beep or microwave ding to know when something is ready (auditory)
- Reaching for a glass of water on your night stand at night (tactile)
- Typing while only looking at the screen (tactile)
- Walking in the dark and knowing where furniture is based on memory and routine (prediction/memory)
- Knowing it’s raining outside by listening to the sound of the rain hitting the roof, windows, or other surfaces (auditory)
- Verbally dictating a text message (auditory)
Everyone with CVI uses compensatory skills.
Many with CVI naturally create their own workarounds and compensatory strategies to access the world around them. CVI lived experiences and emerging research show that some with CVI use mainly visual skills, some use mainly nonvisual skills, and the majority use both. Children and adults with CVI commonly use multisensory, semantic, and verbal strategies to compensate for deficits in visual recognition and memory (Duesing et al., 2025).
Why is it important to evaluate compensatory skills within a CVI assessment?
- Identify and capitalize on compensatory strategies that individuals with CVI use to better understand the world.
- Understand how compensatory strategies support recognition (both visual and/or non-visual compensatory skills). For example, does the individual only recognize a person when they speak? Can a child only recognize a toy once they touch or hear the sound of the toy? Do they only recognize an item based on color?
- Identify emerging compensatory strategies that can be reinforced through direct instruction.
- Develop student-centered educational programming that embeds compensatory access and instruction, and encourages the use of the skills the student uses to learn and navigate their environment.
What are some examples of the compensatory skills individuals with CVI use?
Here are some examples of compensatory skills for individuals with CVI gleaned from research, student assessments, and lived experiences from individuals with CVI.
Auditory cues and strategies
- Audiobooks, speech-to-text, voiceover tools
- Hearing an item touch the tabletop to know something is there
- Recognizing someone by their voice or the sound of their footsteps
- Audio Description on TV shows and movies
- Listening to conversation during a board game to better understand the moves being made by other players
- Entering into a room and saying, “Hi!,” to understand who is in the room.
- Listening for keys that jingle, and saying “Hi, I knew you were coming back. I heard your keys!”
- Identifying a favorite toy by the sound it makes
- Using auditory scanning with a communication device
- Locating a family member in the home by following their voice
- Identifying different vehicles by their sounds
- Attentive to the sound of what a caregiver is doing (e.g. cooking in the environment by the sounds of chopping, mixing, kneading)
- Knowing it’s time for a specific task based on sound (e.g., bath/shower)
- Relying on public transportation announcements to know what stop is next
Memory and context cues
- Memorizing where items are kept, the layout of a room, a familiar route in school or in the neighborhood
- Using memory to locate a favorite button on a toy or appliance
- Knowing it’s mom at school pickup because mom is always the one to pick up at school
Predictability and organization
- Rely on familiar routines to move through tasks; rely on time of day to know which routine is coming next
- Feeling for a toy that you expect to be in a specific spot in your home
- Store items in the same place in each room so they can always be located
- Using the same route when traveling to a particular destination
- Grouping items together and placing them in plastic containers in pantry
Tactile cues/exploration
- Tactile symbols and maps
- Bump dots on appliances or other household items
- Braille and tactile supports for literacy and math
- Manipulatives to support concept development
- Mapping a new space by the different terrains
- Searching for items using your hands
- Opening your mouth for food only once a spoon touches it
- Using touch to locate food on a plate or an item on a table
- Holding onto a railing, dragging heels, and toe tapping while descending stairs
- Touching a surface before placing an item
- Using a white cane for navigation
Smell
- Knowing it’s almost time to eat when you smell food cooking
- Knowing you are close to a pool from the chlorinated smell
- Recognizing someone based on the smell of their scent
- Using distinct smells along a route in the community to know where you are
Color-coding
- Recognizing an item solely based on color (e.g. purple toothbrush, red ketchup bottle)
- Using colored mats to store and find items (e.g. remote, glasses)
- Color as a key tool for finding items (e.g. knowing the color of a snack item and locating the snack drawer)
- Relying on color to locate an icon on an AAC device
- Identify someone by their hair color, color of their shirt or backpack
- Using the color of an item to make a choice
Visual strategies
- Recognizing someone based on their shoes, hair color/style, distinctive features (beard, glasses), how they walk, shape of their forehead
- Previewing unfamiliar places through photos, video, and map apps
- Relying on landmarks to orient
- Using Google Maps features to plan routes or zoom in on landmarks in a destination
- Reducing visual clutter in the environment, keeping a desk clear of clutter and only essential items
- Black mat on the table to add contrast
- Visual breaks, closing eyes, resting
Planning and other adaptive strategies
- Arrive early to an event or social situation
- Leave early from class to navigate school hallways when quiet and without crowds
- Chose quieter environments in general; avoid, busy, crowded, noisy places
- Avoid large groups to reduce sensory overload and improve social comfort
- Guide dog or human guide to support safe navigation
Kinesthetic / movement / hands-on
- Dragging fingers on wall while walking down a hallway
- Drawing pictures to support comprehension
- Acting out or role playing to support concept development
- Frequent movement breaks
- Banging on a table to get items to move to support recognition
- Moving around the perimeter of an unfamiliar space or playground
- Learning by doing, through hands-on activities, and by exploring real places
It’s not only about how your child learns, but that they have the opportunity to learn. Embracing different senses like hearing and touch only strengthens their learning through compensatory access.
-Lacey Smith, TVI and CVI mom
Compensatory skills from the parent’s perspective
CVI parents know the power of observation and taking their child’s lead to better understand how their child engages with and accesses their world. This knowledge informs advocacy in the educational, medical, and community spaces. Here are some examples from CVI parents:
Liz L.
“My daughter recognizes people by their shoes—she notices, asks about, and touches them. When in a new environment, she explores by walking around to map out the space. She also seems to enjoy wearing hats, likely because they help block out visual information.”
Elaine C.
“My teenage daughter benefits from slow-motion videos so that she can learn new movements: gymnastics, pumping on a swing, flipping on a trampoline, climbing a ladder, and her favorite, aerial aerobics. Videos give her the option to stop, start, and review and we also video her progress so she can see how much she has learned.”
Heidi Z.
“My 7-year-old uses real or toy robot vacuums to “map” spaces, which helps him build visual memory of new environments, something he did in every room at school this year. He learns kinesthetically by watching real trucks, then mimicking their movements with toy trucks, often whispering movement descriptions as he plays. He also learns a lot through sound: he can identify trucks by their noise, locate people in the house, recognize Thermomix functions by sound, and early on used color words to ask about things around him.”
Ji Jessie Z.
“My son has an amazing memory. He remembers his schedule, where things are, and every comment I make while reading. However, when the routine isn’t followed or something new comes up that we haven’t talked about, he gets lost. He’s very tuned in to sounds and conversations around him; for example, during a busy board game, he listens to others’ moves so he can focus just on his part, and his older brother’s habit of narrating what he sees really helps him too.”
Lacey S.
“My daughter benefits greatly from routines by demonstrating readiness through a combination of compensatory skills, including memory, context, predictability, and auditory cues. For example, she knows that bath time follows her dinner routine and anticipates it as she’s carried upstairs, smiling and vocalizing when she hears the water running. Familiar elements, like the same bathroom, bath chair, and sequence of events help reinforce her understanding and engagement in the routine.”
Adults with CVI report how they use compensatory skills
As an adult with CVI, Silas shares tools and strategies to help him recognizing faces:
He and his friends made bracelets with different colors and shapes of charms for each person. If he’s not sure who he’s talking to, he gestures to his own bracelet to ask them to show theirs. If he’s in a big crowd, at least one of his friends tries to stay next to him.
Other examples reported by an adult with CVI include:
Assistive tools and technology
- Braille, screen reader, white cane, touch typing and keyboard commands, and other specialized equipment at home, work, and school.
Environmental adaptations
- Keeping personal items in the same space, having a safe place to relax and unwind
Energy and time management
- Reducing visual tasks, managing time and capacity (not doing too much at once or after a heavy vision day), allowing for additional time.
Social strategies
- Verbal cues such as people introducing themselves, description of objects or environments, context changes).
Tactile and conceptual learning
- Using tactile explanations of abstract concepts (i.e. partner holding out hands to show bird size while birdwatching
Compensatory skills are essential
Compensatory skills are specific strategies and abilities an individual with CVI needs in order to effectively engage in their learning and their world. These skills are essential regardless of age, developmental level, or preferred way of learning. Each individual with CVI develops the skills that best support their unique approach to accessing information. Individuals with CVI often rely on a combination of strategies that work together to support their understanding. These strategies highlight how interconnected and layered compensatory skills can be, with multiple strategies often used simultaneously to make sense of routines and environments.
To ensure proper support and instruction, it is essential to conduct thorough evaluations, such as a Functional Vision Assessment, a Learning Media Assessment, and a CVI evaluation. These assessments help the educational team tailor materials and create structured, individualized teaching plans.
Whether you’re working with children or adults with CVI, let them decide if they want to use their vision, if they want to do non-visual, if they want to go back and forth, or use both. Give them that freedom to choose what works best for their brain in that moment with all the factors, internal and external, that are happening. Only that individual can know what they need.”
-Nai, an adult with CVI
Keep learning about CVI
Resources:
Bennett RG, Tibaudo ME, Mazel EC and Y. N (2025) Implications of cerebral/cortical visual impairment on life and learning: insights and strategies from lived experiences. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 18:1496153. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2024.1496153
Chokron, S., Kovarski, K., and Dutton, G. N. (2021). Cortical Visual Impairments and Learning Disabilities. Front. Human Neurosci. 15:713316. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.713316
Duesing SL, Lane-Karnas K, Duesing SJA, Lane-Karnas M, Y N and Chandna A (2025) Sensory substitution and augmentation techniques in cerebral visual impairment: a discussion of lived experiences. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 19:1510771. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2025.1510771)
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Tibaudo ME, CVI Visual Behaviors: Compensatory Skills (Video) June 7, 2022https://www.youtube.com/embed/d6X8wdEZ_Zg
