I am an Orientation & Mobility Specialist. Most people call me an O&M or mobility teacher. I have even been called the “cane lady”. However, more often than not, many people do not know what I do. I thought I would take the opportunity to explain.
Orientation is to know where one is in space. It is the ability to use one’s senses to understand current location in their environment at any given time. Mobility is the ability to travel from point A to B. Essentially, it is the ability to move from one place to another. An Orientation & Mobility Specialist teaches the concepts, skills, and techniques necessary for a person, with a visual impairment, to travel safely through the environment.
As an O&M teacher, I work with individuals to attain their mobility goals. This may be traveling throughout their home, walking outside to get their mail, taking a walk around the block, or getting on a bus and going to work. It may include walking with a walker, cane, using a monocular for distance viewing, providing sun lens for glare protection, or protective techniques. It may be working at their home, school, or out in the community. It may include learning how to cross streets, using public transportation, climbing steps, walking at the mall, or maneuvering through the local grocery store. It frequently includes re-enforcement of skills with employers, teachers, or family members. It includes coordinating services with agencies, IEP meetings at schools, contact with parents and teachers, scheduling, report writing, speaking engagements, in-service trainings with staff members, ordering and delivering equipment, mapping out safe routes to travel or intersections to cross, obtaining bus schedules, making tactile maps, and promoting public awareness. Add in the hours I spend in my vehicle getting to and from the people that need my help. To say I am “on the road” most of my day is an understatement.
Throughout my job, I have worked with young children through older adults, and everyone in between. I have worked with two–year-olds, up to my oldest client that was 101 years young. Each new person is different, with different needs, abilities, and goals. What may work for one person, will not work for another. When I tell others what I do, I often hear “what a noble profession.” But, to me it is so much more than that. Do I teach others how to use the cane? Absolutely! But more often than not, they end up teaching me so much more. It gives me great joy to see an individual attain his or her goals, no matter how big or small the feat. The new sense of pride and independence they receive is the greatest reward an O&M teacher could have. Yes, the “cane lady” has arrived.
