Program Plans : Related Services : Orientation & Mobility - Overview
What Is Orientation and Mobility (O&M)?
Orientation and Mobility training (O&M) provides a blind or visually impaired individual with the skills to know where he or she is in space and where he or she wants to go (orientation). It also helps enable them to carry out a plan to get there (mobility). Orientation and Mobility skills should begin to be developed in infancy starting with basic body awareness and movement, and continuing on into adulthood as the individual learns skills that allow them to navigate their world efficiently, effectively, and safely.
Orientation and Mobility training actually began after World War II when techniques were developed to help veterans who had been blinded. In the 1960s universities started training programs for Orientation and Mobility Specialists who worked with adults and school-aged children. In the 1980s the O&M field first recognized the benefit of providing services to preschool-aged children. Today, Orientation and Mobility Specialists have developed strategies and approaches for serving increasingly younger populations so that O&M training may begin in infancy.
What Skills are Taught Through O&M?
When planning an O&M program, the focus of training may include such things as:
- sensory awareness - gaining information about the world through hearing, smell, touch and proprioception
- spatial concepts - realizing that objects exist even if not heard or felt, and understanding the relationships which exist between objects in the environment
- searching skills - locating items or places efficiently
- independent movement - crawling, rolling, walking, etc.
- sighted guide - using another person to aid in travel
- protective techniques - specific skills which provide added protection in unfamiliar areas
- cane skills - use of various cane techniques to clear one's path or to locate objects along the way