About the Author

 

Ellen Cadigan Mazel, M.Ed. CTVI, Deafblind Specialist

Ellen works at the Perkins School for the Blind CVI Center as the Director of Development and Research. She joined the administrative leadership team at Perkins School for the Blind to create and oversee Perkins CVI assessment and programming in 2017. The position includes medical, educational, research and practitioner partnerships with Dr. Lotfi Merabet, Dr. Corinna Bauer, Dr. Barry Kran, Dr. Nicole Ross and vision professionals at MIT, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston Children’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School to advance knowledge about CVI. Though these partnerships, she continues to learn and expand her own understanding of CVI. At Perkins, Ellen directs assessments of students with CVI, directs program planning across the day to improve service and learning environments for children with CVI on and off campus. She has also created an on-campus mentoring system to increase knowledge and skills around CVI. She is involved in creating online learning resources for the larger community of parents and professionals serving students with CVI.

Ellen teaches Cortical/Cerebral Visual Impairment: Assessment and Education in the Vision Studies graduate program at the University of Massachusetts Boston training teachers of students with visual impairments about the unique assessment and service to children with CVI. She co-created the five course University of Massachusetts, Boston CVI Certification Program. This program expands knowledge of the Visual Brain, CVI Overview, CVI Assessment. Promising Practices of Children with CVI, and Collaboration Considerations for Students with CVI.

Ellen previously worked for Concord Area Special Education Collaborative (CASE Collaborative) in Concord, Massachusetts as a teacher of students with visual impairments, deafblindness and cortical/cerebral visual impairment.  She worked with the Minuteman Early Intervention Program in Concord supporting infants and toddlers with visual impairments and their families. Ellen worked for 10 years in Educational Partnerships at Perkins School for the Blind with infants and toddlers as well as school age children. In 2008, Ellen was named National Teacher of the Year for Children with Multiple Disabilities by the Council of Schools for the Blind (COSB). She worked for 9 years in Melrose, Massachusetts as an integrated preschool teacher.  She began her career as a teacher of teenage students with deafblindness supporting functional academics for independent living and working.  Ellen has expertise in the area of visual impairment, deafblindness, early intervention, multiple disabilities, cortical/cerebral vision impairment, and transition.  After learning about CVI, she became interested in the most recent brain science information, how children with visual impairments build compensatory skills and how children’s experiences relate to children’s growth and development.

She hopes blogging will generate more referrals for children so they can improve visual skills.  A majority of all learning is visual!