Illinois
School for the Visually Impaired
658 East State Street • Jacksonville, Illinois
62650-2130
Toll Free: 800-919-5617 • Voice: 217-479-4400 • TTY: 217-479-4415 • Fax:
217-479-4479
www.isvi.net • E-mail:
ISVI
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May's Tips For Parents Orientation and MobilityOrientation and Mobility (O&M) is organizing one’s surroundings (Orientation) and then safely traveling through those surroundings (mobility). The hard part is orientation – the conceptual and thinking part! Most of us learn visually. I love baseball and have well before I knew all the rules – I just watched and jumped in! The same was true with Drivers Education: I had watched my parents drive; watched traffic patterns as a pedestrian and passenger; and then incorporated them when it was my turn to drive. These experiences, and thousands of others in our lives, are called ‘Incidental learning’. We watch an activity, grasp its basic concepts, and then go for it. Details come in time, but those initial observations form our initial desire to pursue and improve on an activity. Imagine your knowledge of your environment and understanding of activities that you participate in if you had not had vision. A child born with a significant visual impairment will not get the entire experience as easily as we do. Even with functional vision, the child with a visual impairment will not see details clearly. To compensate for lack of vision, your child needs someone to provide experiences and explanations that fill in the numerous holes that their functional vision is leaving. How can it be done? Here are a few thoughts for this Summer: Think in terms of what your child sees and does not see – or perhaps – what he or she hears and does not hear. Learn to search layouts using sound and tactile senses as much as visual. Your child is hearing things that are potential landmarks and safety cues. In the early going ask your child what he is hearing, than explain what the sound is and anything you see or hear around it. You will be surprised how quickly you too will be using hearing as a distance sense when helping your child in new locations. Every trip is a learning experience. Try to add ‘environmental concepts’ (concepts that allow us to understand how cities are laid out). Activities such as compass/cardinal directions and using city numbering systems are things your child is getting a heavy dose of it during the school year and they may know more than you expect. Do some travel routes using sequences in your daily routine (even by car) but then work out ‘alternate’ routes – this will help the child understand ‘spatial relationships’ that are so critical in problem solving, yet so hard to comprehend when there is minimal visual history. Safe travel pulls together geography (city layouts), math (Parallel and perpendicular traffic patterns, degrees of turn, etc), psychology (dealing with stress), sensory strengths and the balancing of the senses – for safety and efficiency. The more time you spend explaining things to your child in travel situations, the quicker you will understand where the strengths and weaknesses lie. You then can assist in providing valuable input to school O&M staff and other family members eager to help. Most important is the message you are sending to your child. Your effort may not be popular with your child (homework never is), but it will show the child you believe they can travel and that you are willing to be a part in this stressful journey. |
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