This section will define several different skills and give examples of how to practice these skills in school. This is not a comprehensive list, and these ideas will need to be adapted to fit your specific student's strengths and limitations.
Understanding Movement
Students need to understand basic movement concepts such as go, start, stop, open, slow, fast, and turn. This is especially important as a student is learning to listen to and follow verbal directions. The list below includes a few examples of how these concepts might be taught.
Modeling
Model what each of the words mean, then have the student practice with you. They can walk close to you to feel when you start and stop, or turn left to right.
Play 'red light, green light' by having a race with other students to practice starting, stopping, and walking fast and slow.
Treasure Hunt
Take the student on a treasure hunt through the classroom. They need to follow your directions in order to find the treasure. Use instructions like: 'Open the door, walk four steps forward, stop, turn to the right, and walk until you feel the table in front of you.'
Cane Skills
Using a cane is a critical skill for many students with vision loss. The idea behind using the cane is that the student pushes it in front of them to detect if something is obstructing the way. At this point, they use movement skills to move around or step over the item.
Exploring
When students are starting out with a cane, they often want to just explore their surroundings. Take the student to a safe part of the school and let them walk around and use their cane in different ways. Let them hear how it sounds when the cane hits the metal on the playground versus the sidewalk or a wooden door.
Swinging
Students will need to learn the appropriate distance for swinging their cane back and forth. Let's say you want them to swing their cane 18 inches. Measure a long strip of cardboard that is 18 inches wide and place it on the tile floor. Have the student walk and swing their cane so that they can hear it hit the tile floor. If they hear the soft sound of the cane hitting the cardboard, then they are not swinging it wide enough.
Trailing
Trailing is a strategy the many students use to move through school safely. The idea is to move your fingers along a surface, usually a wall or handrail. This helps the student know where they are in the hallways or in a new room.
Orientation and mobility training helps people with visual impairment learn to navigate their environment. It teaches them to know where they are and create a plan to get where they want to go.
Orientation is the ability to recognise one's position in relation to the environment, whereas mobility is the ability to move around safely and efficiently. Orientation and mobility (O&M) training teaches people to use their remaining vision and other senses to get around. Canes and optical aids may also be used.
Make available large print copies of classroom materials by enlarging them on a photocopier. Convey in spoken words whatever you write on the chalkboard. Read aloud subtitles when using media resources. Assist the student in finding note takers or readers as necessary.
It defines orientation as a blind person's awareness of their physical position and mobility as their ability to safely and independently move from place to place. It then outlines various techniques including cane technique, sighted guide techniques, self-protective techniques, and general orientation tips.
Using a cane and other devices to walk safely and efficiently. Soliciting and/or declining assistance. Finding destinations with strategies that include following directions and using landmarks and compass directions. Techniques for crossing streets, such as analyzing and identifying intersections and traffic patterns.
The TSVI provides instruction in tactual skills in a variety of environments and functional applications, assisting children with visual impairments from infancy to use their fingers and hands to explore, identify, discriminate, and interpret all tangible materials in the environment.
Some key benefits of orientation and mobility training include increased independence, safety, personal development, and community integration for visually impaired individuals. It involves developing sensory awareness skills like using sounds, smells, and touch to understand one's surroundings.
O&M provides people with visual impairments with the mental and physical skills they need to navigate from point A to point B and to move through space efficiently, safely, and independently in familiar and unfamiliar places.
The Importance of Orientation and Mobility Skills for Students Who Are Deaf-Blind. Orientation and mobility (O&M) instruction provides students who are deaf-blind with a set of foundational skills to use residual visual, auditory, and other sensory information to understand their environments.
Orientation and Mobility (O&M) involves training in key areas: Orientation: This helps people with blindness and low vision understand their environment—learning to use sounds, smell, texture, touch, and other sensory cues to interpret the environment, orient themselves, and mentally map their surroundings.
Introduction: My name is Saturnina Altenwerth DVM, I am a witty, perfect, combative, beautiful, determined, fancy, determined person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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