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Finding Wheels: Strategies to Build Independent Travel Skills

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Presented by Dr. Anne Corn on 4/6/2021 Unity Virtual Academy 2020-2021 Session Description: The 2020 edition of Finding Wheels from TSBVI is full of up to date information, strategies, activities, and personal stories. This is a great addition to instruction in the ECC areas of orientation and mobility, self determination, social skills, and AT.

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I just started recording and you can start anytime okay well it's great to be back in Tennessee even if it's virtual and it's good to see you and glad you're interested in finding wheel drive to G's for gaining independence travel skills for those with visual impairments and I'm doing the presentation but my co-author on it it is Penny Rosenblum in 2020 we're always walking we're riding with floating with flying with doing all these different activities and we say we're always on go but are we I want to start with a theory of well-being that we're all familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs and look at Safety and Security that comes right after physiological needs of food water warmth and rest and that's we're orientation and Mobility I think needs to be placed here we see three children will on their way to Independent Mobility independent travel and the important thing is there are autonomous from and at the time when typically sided kids are separating from adults and starting to run away and ambulate on their own we need to be sure that these children are also able to ambulate view step from adults otherwise their steps have no purpose and you know I I remember seeing so many people holding children's hands and helping them walk walk walk but it was no purpose if you look at the on the left she was exploring the plant in the in a in a mall and it's because she was able to ambulate away from her her mother so this is adapted from a an image that is going to be in the new foundations of orientation and Mobility that American printing house for the blindness is putting out and I've adapted for this presentation but it's it's really From Grace and Rosie can and some you may remember her she was a doctor in to fandi and he's been working with the Bell cane but I think this is really important image from what she's writing about early childhood and she says just taken the expanded curriculum and placed it within a hierarchy similar to Maslow's hierarchy and what I think is happening here is showing the rent each Mobility needs to be on the foundation of the hierarchy but the extended Court topics up above are going to as they develop you need more skills and likewise the more skills you have the more you going to be able to develop many of the upper levels okay here we have something that I'm proposing and it's orientation mobility wayfinding and transportation and maybe over the last 10 years or so we've been hearing more but we funding and that as a separate component for orientation Mobility instruction but I'm proposing is the transportation control of one's transportation becomes as a separate and yet integrated component of orientation and Mobility instruction I think gaining control over transportation is the Capstone skill set or becoming an independent travel and what war of these components have the same aspects of sensory development cognitive do element and psychosocial development so I'm not quite sure whether there's a hierarchy or a flow chart for this presentation I'm just suggesting them as a distinct components and I think as people work with these or it will go a little Italy balls so I didn't want to start to say who said what in the research but I just drew some tidbits from the Empirical research on the psychosocial aspects of orientation and mobility and that's what this is really all about it isn't just the skill set to to travel on by a bus it's what helps a person to become interested in independent travel so I read what was available this really a dearth of Empirical research on psychosocial aspects of orientation and Mobility know what I did find an article was that women and those with low vision have higher reported levels of anxiety and frustration related to travel then men wouldn't those who are blind those with Progressive eye conditions tend to have Sonic feelings of overwhelm they feel like they're they're doing fine and then maybe during the loss of further Vision or another type of stressor they haven't start a sense of overwhelmed and that I found in a few articles those with Progressive conditions even a cross-cultural study showed that people are very concerned if they have fur Reservoir about using the cane in one study they were using it sparingly and another study that chose not to and it wasn't because of the functionality or what a white can do for them but rather was a feelings that they don't want to be stared at and especially by those people who knew them as fully sighted individuals in a study of working-age adults under the highest dressers mobilityware unfamiliar areas unfamiliar bus routes walking in and walking in urban areas with without sidewalks Dunes in the longitudinal study for years they those who are active had better mental health than those who weren't and I had a lot of questions about the ology but this was result and I saw that this idea of the more active a child is the better than mental health and the more mobile they are find overtime adults tend to reduce their worries come from a time when they stop driving to when they get a sense of how they're in control of their transportation needs any questions on the research know that's really interesting so what's missing from the research we don't have intervention studies so it's like I kept feeling like the all the researchers were looking at what is the problem I can see Solutions so we need those intervention studies we needed to disciplinary research anxiety and an even depression surround orientation and Mobility weary I need you to cooperate with mental health professionals designing studies that will mitigate the the psychosocial aspects that could restrict a person's desire to be mobile Ann the recipient's Pacific psychological issues that I would like to see you dressed such as the the continuance of orientation and Mobility after someone completes orientation and Mobility instruction why does one person feel that they are capable of doing it in another person is not we talked about mixed messages when we were doing the low vision clinic at Vanderbilt we would just try it and we would ask a parent a teacher and a student who was over 12 years of age to complete form that gave us scores for expectations for the use of near and distance Vision while some of the expectations of the Triad the three people with similar time after time we was that parents and professionals with giving different messages to the student about independence and when I've done a lot of interviews of older adults Karen also joined in in doing some of those while she was at Vanderbilt but I think that the older adults are also telling us the same thing that one of the barriers to going out on their own are these mixed messages whether it's their own children or professionals or whoever they don't know what they're really capable of doing and so mixed messages and something that we need to pay attention to okay so don't you may remember Cindy bhaktapur she wrote a beautiful piece Cindy did her doctorate at Vanderbilt she's now the Lead Teacher for Low Vision at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired he's called the opportunity to be an active Traveler and it was published in Noah National Organization for albinism and hypopigmentation in the summer issue and it's really about the gist making to be an active travel I want to give you a few a few resources for someone who is undergoing a progressive loss on the this is an old book but it's still it's still hold a bad feel goodbye Krista ND he is a Swedish professional actually came to visit us to see what we were doing with the pain clinic and he went through Libra hereditary neuropathy and he wrote this book not a life story but more about one of the issues and how do you how do you make adjustments he spent a lot of time on orientation Mobility that's one to pay attention to and it is free of charge online and for older adults is the resource reclaiming Independence staying in the drivers when you no longer drive and this comes from American printing house for the Blind and Kenny Rosenblum with was involved in it it's about different people live in cities and rural areas and even a lady on a mountain top as I recall who talked about how they get where they want to go and it's a very positive video that I think could help a lot of people okay if you quotes from a man of working-age man who we interviewed I did with the I think this was Sharon sacks I did I don't have anyone to talk to to vent my frustration about not being able to drive if I talk to someone who drives they going to think that I want them to feel sorry for me or that I'm just asking them for to give me more rides the quote in this was from a woman I knew many years ago but I think it's important as we go through orientation mobility and transportation issues a blind person has difficulty envisioning reaching a higher level of functioning in orientation and Mobility until they actually reach it they don't have the luxury of observing other blind people functioning at that higher level and so I think that has importance for sure I'm too because we're asking them to do something that they've never been able to observe as we observe someone another child crossing the street and so on and a teacher said I can't get mad at my parents because of the next breath I'm asking one of them to give me a ride Okay so and I'm just one more about movement and this was from a three year old mother she goes now the Tyler has heard his Scope when I open the door to his preschool he sees it's me and he runs to me just like the other children do yeah I know I've always remembered that one okay any questions so far so we're going to talk about finding wheels and finding Wheels strategies to build independent travel skills for those with visual cuz I said it is it is about skill sets but it's also about the psychosocial aspects it began with a conversation with dr. Sharon sacks I started driving when in 1990 and she and I had a conversation about my driving but it brought up some emotional stuff for both of us about our lot that we both felt that we had not had support for the logistics and the emotional impact being told you can't drive and so Sharon and I did a study in 1994 of working-age adults cuz we wanted to know how does not driving impact working after that we felt from our own experiences from those of students we had known and the the study we were ready to start writing and so the person came out in 2090 replacement for orientation Mobility instruction this is an adjunct this is that final component of gain control of Transportation so it's available through the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired it's available in print or an ebook with personal accounts and recordings of drama students from the University of Arizona and I want to mention either Penny nor I get royalties for this so it isn't about selling books is just giving you a tool okay so in 2021 we wrote To The Traveler instead of to the professional and there directions for parents and professionals that are set aside inside bars so it's really directed to the teenager or young adult focuses on the psychosocial aspects and it includes up-to-date technology for transportation options in the 2020 it was like a Time Warp in the 2000 edition we were sending kids to telephone booth I told him to carry money with them for no one had a GPS it was almost like going back in time and we laughed a lot about what's changed in that computer what time so that's what we have it includes objectives for IEPs and lesson plans it includes activities for assignments and it set up as 10 chapters for weekly or my reprogramming it can be a part of the orientation Mobility instruction or it could also be done with it by teacher visually impaired as part of expanded Core Curriculum so we will assume that the student is he undergoing who has completed orientation and mobility and it's also good for a zoom group for a summer class or after school club this is from a letter we received after the first day I came from the mother of a fifteen-year-old who is living in New Mexico if I recall and she wrote I've always protected my son after reading finding Wheels I now realized I have to help become a man and that was extremely painful to us because not only did tell us that we had hit the right cord but it also reminded us many of the students who are going to be using finding wheels are coming from a place where someone has always provided for them the visual information that they need in school and it's provided transportation and has probably always been with them when they're out I remember a compensation of a student at TSB when I was in Tennessee and it was a father who who whose Child In Those Years A tsp not everyone got out of orientation and Mobility she was 13 and I always tried not to but in but of course I did and I said to him how long do you think you want you think she she will be when she wants to meet some friends at a store or mall or restaurant you said Oh by 16 I said okay let's sit down I'm going to tell you about the skills that she's going to need to acquire in order to be able to do that by 16 next day he was in mr. Brewers office and orientation with the experiences that we really Drew from 4 or for finding Wheels okay so let's go through the chapters the first one is Rev it up laying the foundation for finding Wheels now I'm going to tell you about the pictures this is the young man who is a student at the University of Arizona I'm very proud of the fact that I taught him how to pump gas great you never pump gas and came out of a conversation about reciprocating for people who give you rides and so you've never done anything like this and I said would you like to learn and he said yeah and so this is the picture we got okay so when rev it up we talked about the relationship between orientation Mobility skills making life choices and what skills you have the ability you have to have choices in your life and we also talked to students about using at different times in their lives and four different kinds of trips dependent into dependent and independent travel we talked about their relationships with orientation Mobility specialist and we start them doing interviews of non-drivers and end is going to be able to be a low vision driver with low vision drivers and we're not going to hit heavy on the psychosocial to begin with but we want them to interview people about the technology that they use and there's a whole section that Christopher Tabb Road he was president of division night and he's the onm specialist in the state of Texas working out yes baby I answer this whole section on the different types of travel technology and this is just a listing of the kinds of of technologies that he writes about so chapter 2 is got our wheels and you mean five Travelers who needs a fictitious but I remember after the first edition one of the things that really got us laughing was we got letters from folks asking us how the students would doing I love to write fiction you're going to Wheels is that everyone has a travel story we can learn from others we're where we doing to those who do and do not drive that travels have different attitude supports and choices and the activity is starting your own travel story so here's my travel story because it's there he presented to you that's the apartment I grew up in the New York City wow at Age 3 as riding a tricycle age 6 I was on a two-wheeler that's a 1950s New York City bus that I took today Elementary School we didn't have school buses and in high school I took the subway to to to school okay now I couldn't see the numbers of buses I couldn't see the things in the different stations so I actually use the car scheme of each station to be able to be sure I was where I needed to be and each of these has a story as an adult I also stories but we're not going to go there right now so Penney's childhood experiences aren't showing okay she grew up in a Suburban environment and her father actually owned before she was born a driving school so he taught have her class how to drive and that that gives her a lot of stories to tell and she felt about the fact that she couldn't drive but she talks about her early experiences hear it coming I didn't know you could do that cool so that's her father what is a wonderful thing excerpt in in in finding wheels from Haley's mother and she actually recorded her own Hailey story and these are pictures really growing up the last Edition was she's a student at the University of Arizona she was taking a uber and I was glad to be able to get her picture so when we start with the stories of the different folks Layla is the first one she's building her travel tool box is visual Acuity of 2200 she received knowing him through some program he talks about taking the wrong bus and about the problem-solving that she went through and the discussion she had with her Mobility instructor and Layla wants to be a chef now I don't want to go back and tell you Xavier he's not going he was he's a recent high school graduate who lives in a rural community he attended a 10-week residential program and he reluctantly took orientation and Mobility he goes through the process of finally asking a neighbor to give him a ride and how he get started in becoming interested in taking over his Transportation needs and he needs a youngster who is blind who lives and works in another commute rule area and it's about a conversation that the two of them have Harley an app for that he he's the guy who feels like he's going to be able to get anywhere he wants to go because he uses his technology he talks a little bit about being angry when he was 16 and found out he couldn't drive Anna Maria I'm not sure about my future she's has a different story she came from Guatemala when she was 10 she lost her vision she was twelve she received onm but her parents were too protective and didn't let her go off campus now she lives with her boyfriend and works in a dentist's office she feels isolated and nervous about going out on her and she's getting pressure from her parents we tried to make these realistic and she had she has a very interesting story to tell Kendra is a someone who just got her license she has dark arts which was diagnosed in 8th grade she grew up in a rural community and butt at College in Tucson she learned about your cloak and driving it when she was a freshman but two years later she got her license and she she talks about how she has to use non-driving approaches as well as driving God because there are times that it snows or rains and so on and you just can't do it now she's talking about northern northern Arizona not snowing in Tucson chapter 3 he is turning up your wheels and it's about understanding your own visual impairments and its implication for driving or not driving and how you how these numbers and clinical reports going to be used when you're looking at such things of Paratransit services or you going to ask for reduced fare and so on and honey and I found was that a lot of students I've never read I report to their own functional Vision reports so we tired to Transportation but we also want students to lease by high school to be have gone through each of their reports and know what it says so in understanding your visual needs we want them to know their measures for eligibility we also go into why people with typical Vision shoes drive or not to drive now if I did this is a whole Workshop I would be asking people why they won't give me their the keys to their cars and we go through what driving affords a person such a spontaneity and what we want to do is return some of those those aspects of being able to drive such as can you Can you hire a driver to go when you want someone that we talked about the feelings of being a non-driver and what thoughts of pursuing low vision driving we know we need to know when sharing and we'll kind of information when you're waiting for an Uber it's it's good to be able to say I have a visual impairment I'll be holding a chain or you know I may not see you coming please blink your lights twice when garage so I know it's you now they're their number of tidbits that we would give I love this picture for 4 chapter for facilitating changing directions on the road to Independent Wheels picture shows a young woman holding the hand of her toddler and she is traveling independently in this chapter we going to talk about Rites of Passage and every culture every religious group you know everyone has write the passage and we want students to talk about their Rites of Passage even if they're not going to be driving I've gone through different Rites of Passage and we talked about the responsibilities adults have with regard to transfer we want to know what tribal skills are going to be needed now and when you think about you know you're next environment whether it's a college campus or at the work environment what skill are you going to need or if you want to move to a new community how do you find out what is available we talked about making Life Choices such as where to live and we have a guest section by dr. Malik play on whether students should or shouldn't be taking driver's education in high school and some school districts that required everyone takes it with he going to drive or not in some school districts is optional and it does the advantages and disadvantages but it also I also want to mention that I've known in school some school districts with a substitute finding wheels for driver's education this comes from Penny's Penny's that's her house and those are her house in consideration so for example she wants to be a certain distance from a supermarket Siwon to not be too far off of main roads so that friends who pick her up don't have far to go and she outlines where she wants to be when I move to Austin the first time I I had a map with all the bus routes and I knew where the supermarkets were and how far I was going to walk and two months after I moved into a house supermarket close but that presented some other problems so you have to be flexible and we talked about flexibility and okay you know you may have this all under control but something's going to happen we talk about about the things that don't work and what are you going to do about it let's let go through some problem solving chapter 5 is personal Wheels walking by rollerblading skateboarding making choices on the type of personal wheels2walking to ride a bicycle to use or not use my identification came if you have low vision staying and feeling safe when you are traveling alone and we also have a section on dog guides chapter 6 of public Wheels buses Subway's fairies Airport airplanes and Paratransit so we're going to go into the advantages and disadvantages of beach planning cost personal safety and also how do you keep your belongings safe with public Wheels we want to know the social skills and communication skills for public Wheels Visions to use or not use a Paratransit or other programs that are offered for people with disabilities problem solving issues during and after use of public transit what do you do if if you had a no problem how do you even complain to the transit authority some of you may recognize that Jane Erin she was our model for the chapter on drivers providing wheels and he go into Rideshare Services taxis volunteer drivers carpools arrange rides and rides with family and friends and I think this is probably one of the most important of the chapters is jam between The Travelers and drivers they know and it's when is a good time to ask for a ride and how do you ask the driver says no you ask another time what could be their motivation for saying know how do you reciprocate if you are the driver says no now does that mean you should ask again how do you work your transportation needs around their schedules how do you know when you are a real or perceived burden and how do you know when you're overstepping and that's something that came up over and over again when we've done interview about you know that's really hard or how do you resent it if do you resent it if someone doesn't offer rides and you just wait for someone to offer or can you ask so what is the Dairy Queen why is that there a reason why Dairy Queen is there is because for the story that Penny tells and she talks about how she's married she contributes to having a car just a and contributes to hop in the car and if she wants to go to Dairy Queen you know does she have a right to ask because it's her car too or doesn't she and how does how does she work Transportation with her husband I've known marriages that have gone awry because of Transportation okay chapter 8 bioptic Wheels and this is about logesh and driving and there's a wonderful recording of JoJo is on the left with his truck his mother wrote about a parent's perspective what was it like when he said I want to drive and she's she's very honest and I think it helps students to understand what their parents may be going through we have other parent perspective well to try or not to try to be a low vision driver and here comes the Imposter syndrome everyone thinks I have really really bad vision and here I want to get behind the wheel or I want to try but if I fail what the  am I going to feel if I find that I can't acquire the driving skills others reactions once you start driving are they going to tease you how what kinds of reactions can you expect know what if it's someone doesn't feel comfortable being a passenger in your car and we go through pre driver awareness training and Licensing procedures in the patients diligence one needs hey this is such a personal Story by Matt Bailey about how he became a low vision driver and let me see how much time I have I just want to play a game a bit and then I'm going to move on I've been obsessed with cars ever since I was a toddler my uncle gave me a toy car then and I instantly started mimicking the sounds of the engine and the transmission shifting gears as a kindergartener I constantly bug my parents to tell me what roads we were on and I even made maps of our area in third grade I assemble a working clear plastic model of a car engine to learn how it works I even read repair manual cars we didn't even own my mom always say reluctant to support my fascination with cars then one day when I was twelve she told me we will support you trying to drive if there is any way you can pass the vision test vision test of course I knew my eyes didn't work as well as my friend's eyes did but I never actually thought about the fact that you had to pass a vision test to drive I grew up in a suburban area where an idea of the kinds of personal stories that are included okay a resource the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired every year has a combination of Outreach Services and short-term programs they bring kids who are 16 years of age and older who the Texas requirements for low vision driving so the parents and the kids come and they have 3 days of reality check know what is it like what is it what's involved in that who is who is showing different kinds of bayoptiks that they may be prescribed by chapter 9 we're funding wheels at this point with we're expecting the going to understand that they're going to need to earn some money that they have to learn how to budget that they might be exchanging rides and they going to be reciprocating for rides so here we seeing young man who is he's from he's he's earning some money for his Transportation budget and what we suggest is if a family has money and would be helping the student who has normal vision to obtain a card play some of his some of their insurance and whatever the amount is with suggesting that they put that aside for the student in high school to start learning how to become in charge their transportation so they start learning that they can hire another student to to enter someone else who has a license they can take a taxi they can do whatever they need to do to start doing the skill is it going to need in their next environments so they going to learn how to use a transportation budget there was also going to talk about bothering you or do you babysit for 3 hours for a 2-hour trip or how do you adjust that and how do you plan whether or not you're going to be paying for gas or you're going to need some people believe in higher or a I purchase a car and just hire a driver for work so we go into all those life decisions finally we have chapter 10 making your wheels run smoothly this is about social skills again we return problem solving and waiting for transportation and so we're talking about how do you medicate frustrations talkin with other non drivers low vision drivers assertiveness and I'm stopping and ultimately how do you feel how does it feel to be in control of your transportation needs so my confession is that I complained about the research we haven't done research my new Wheels I'm really hoping that someone picks it up and is able to look at proposed testing maybe a quasi-experimental design okay I mentioned virtual reality first few minutes I want to go into the future so I'm working with Wright State University dr. Josephine Wilson we have a proposal and to I yes and what we're hoping to do is bring virtual reality to orientation and Mobility it is so safe environment before student try something to read Sunburn and you can you can virtual reality you can pick up a cane you can hear the sounds 360 surround sound I don't know if you've had a chance to actually put on a virtual reality headset but it really is a different environment and we're also could you know thinking about being able to practice Street crossing with various love how's the traffic to the mobility instructor hit the button and you can change how much traffic there is what the sounds or how much light the levels there are and can you imagine bringing various environment Travelers reducing time and cost would just think about someone who is living in a rural area who need some downtown Nashville experience this is not going to replace Real Environment than real experiences but if someone is extremely cautious someone has a lot of anxiety let's try it in in virtual reality first so I'm hoping that that's the case let me know if ability instructors who would like to be involved with this we should know in the next few weeks whether or not we're funded great end with a Doctor Seuss quote to me and my hats off to Karen Blankenship for self with self-esteem here it says your brains in your head and feet in your shoes you can steer yourself any direction you choose you're on your own and you know what you know and you're the one who will decide where to go that's great okay questions no. I don't. I don't have any question for say other than that this is just a great resource week Joey and I were both chili more than me was using the older person that finding wheels and then found out that there was a new one until snatched one of those up but it's been wonderful in the virtual environment when we've had to teach remote good good and you know there are groups that are formed around the country you know using Zoom you know where you can get kids from various communities together online to go through finding Wheels but I didn't do my whole hour cuz I was kind of expecting more question that's okay it was wonderful. glad you enjoyed it and say hi to Karen for me we will

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