Dr. Catherine Smyth has more than 30 years of experience in the field of early intervention and preschool education for children with vision impairments. She is now the Director of Research at Anchor Center For Blind Children, a private, non-profit agency serving young children with visual impairments in Colorado. Anchor provides exceptional, high-quality early intervention; special education; developmental assessment and therapy (occupational, speech-language among others); and supportive family engagement and coaching for blind children during their most formative years of development: birth to age five. As the director of research, Dr. Smyth has worked on studies around such important topics as mealtime routines in early intervention for infants and toddlers with visual impairment, concept and tactile development for preschoolers, and newborn visual screening. Her most recent project has been a collaboration with the Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children's NICU and Dr. Robert King of Children's Eye Physicians on the NAVEG Project which seeks to establish a reliable, evidence-based Cortical/Cerebral Vision Impairment (CVI) screening protocol for newborns and infants. Dr. Smyth also prepares graduate students in online classes at Lindenwood University and the University of Utah. In this episode we discuss how Dr. Smyth ended up in the field of vision impairment, what her various roles in the field have been and taught her, all about Anchor Center and what she's excited to be working on now.
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