This summer I will be doing my O&M practicum and the first 50 hours for ACVREP at a local agency in Florida. Out of respect for the agency's clients I will not say which agency and I will only use client initials.
I will be splitting my time with Ms. B and Ms. W, two certified orientation and mobility specialists. I will also get to work with Ms.B's transition program later in the summer.
For the first week I was with Ms. B. We met and discussed some of her clients, when we would see them and some ideas about how we can meet their O&M needs. After planning the rest of our week we went to visit V. V is a student who needed help with the summer bus schedule. We printed copies of the school buses that go by his apartment and used a sharpie to bold the route making it easier for V to see. We did not enlarge the map because he prefers to use regular print with a magnifier. We ran into a problem that some of his classes end after 5pm and the school buses stop at 5pm. V said he would ask his teacher if he could leave a few minutes early, or he look into taking the city bus home. Ms. B scheduled another appointment in 90 days, the maximum amount of time that can go between visits for a client's case to remain open. It was clear V. did not need a lot of help. Ms. B was very understanding of his needs and I really enjoyed the way she pointed out all of V.'s strengths and praised him for his independence.
There were no other mobility clients for me to observe that week due to conflicts in my schedule.
The next week I met Ms. B at the agency to plan. We looked at more bus routes for students. We looked online and called the city transportation department for more information. Because the online system and the phone service gave us little information about the location of an actual stop, we decided to go drive the route. One student, L., wants to get from her home to a Starbucks. We found a Starbucks along a bus route, but after driving it we realized it would drop her off in a place that was not safe. This made me realize the value of planning ahead and actually seeing it for yourself. If we had planned the lesson based on that stop, spent all that time working on it with the student, only to realize later that it was bad, we would have wasted so much time.
After planning and driving the route we went to see A. A. lives alone in an apartment complex. She has had difficulty getting to her dumpster to take out her trash, and because she has left it outside her front door her complex fined her. When Ms.B was last with A. her assignment was to call the complex and self advocate, explaining her situation. A. is totally blind, due to TBI. She also has short term memory problems which makes remembering a route difficult. A. reported that she called her complex and they agreed to have a maintenance man come pick up her garbage as long as she called to let them know she had put it out. Ms. B was proud of A. for calling and standing up for herself. Before we started Ms.B verbally reviewed the route we were going to work on with A. A. went outside and walked the parts of the route she could remember, a long distance, and stopped to think when she became confused. She identified many landmarks along thew way and seemed fairly confidant as she traveled. Ms. B stopper her at key points to get A. to identify where she was. The rest of the route was broken up into sections and worked backward and forward. When she reached the end, A. would have to walk back to the previous landmark and then get back to the end. Once A. went too far and Ms.B let her go until she figured it out on her own. Once back at her apartment the route was discussed in detail. Ms. B went through it step by step with A., and A. recorded the directions verbally into a tape recorder. Because of her memory loss she uses a tape recorder to recall information and uses it when practicing the route alone. Before we left we planned A.'s next meeting.
Ms. B and I could not meet the next day, however I planned from home. R. might get a job at one of the malls in town. I had to look up information about where the closest bus stop was to her house, if it was safe to get to, and what the easiest and safest way there was for her top get to the mall. Bus routes can be complicated! Even after calling the city bus customer service line I still wasn't sure where the closest stop was to her house. The man on the phone told me the area I asked him to look up was a government building...weird. I wrote out several aproximate times the bus would arive, when and how it would change at the station, and when it would arrive at the mall. I also did the return route, and made notes about a night bus. This took me an hour!
The next day Ms. B and I met at L.'s apartment. L. is the student mentioned above who wanted to get to a Starbucks using the city bus. Ms. B planned out the bus route fot L. Like with A., before we started Ms. B. went over the route verbally. We began with L. getting out of her complex. She did this with ease. The next step was walking a couple blocks to the bus stop on a major intersecting road. L. was hesitant whenever a car drove down the street next to her. Ms. B shower L. how wide the grass was so she would know there was no way she would fall into the road. As L. went on she veered when crossing a driveway, but recovered. Once we reached the corner where she would have to cross to get to the bus stop we were running out of time. Ms. B decided to reverse the route and see if L. could get back home. This time the traffic did not seem to bother her. She was home quickly and we planned our next meeting. During the lesson I noticed how Ms. B was careful not to answer all of L.'s questions with 'yes' or 'no' answers. Instead she would ask 'what makes for think that?' and 'how can we be sure?'. By doing this she is avoiding teaching learned helplessness to L.
The next day we went to see R., the student who I had planned a bus route for. Ms. B had driven by and determined the location of the closest stop. She went over directions verbally with R. before we left the house. As we walked down the sidewalk Ms. B encouraged R. to use 2 point touch instead of shore lining and constant contact. When R. was not covering enough on her left and too much on the right Ms. B would make a joke saying 'that's so sweet of you to cover me on your right, but I'm okay you need to cover yourself more'. Once at the bus stop R. realized she had no money. Ms. B and I quietly discussed if we should loan her the money so we could still do the lesson. Ms.B decided to make it a point about responsibility and being prepared. I thought this was a good idea because if R. was alone and the bus had come, they would not have let her on without money. Looking at my notes about the bus times I realized we might have just enough time to hurry back to R.'s home to pick up money and get back before the bus came. Ms. B went over the reverse route step by step. Motivated, R. moved quickly back down the route to her home. She got some change and then we were off again. As we walked I began to hear the bus in the distance, and when we were only 2 blocks away from the stop the bus drove past us, not stopping at our stop because no one was there waiting. I was kind of dissapointed after all that time I put into planning our trip. However I aggree with Ms. B's decision to make R. responsible for her bus money.
The last day of that week Ms. B and I went to visit M. M. is applying to dog guide schools to get a dog. The last time someone from his preferred school came to visit he noted things about M.'s apartment that would have to change before he could receive a dog. Ms. B came to take pictures of the improvements that M. made. She also reviewed paperwork and discussed the last few steps M. needs to do to get his dog.
Ms. B informed me she would be out of town the following week, and then busy transferring her case load the next. My following week was too busy to do anything, so the following week she said I should try to meet with the other mobility specialist, Ms. W.
This first week was very interesting. I feel like I got to observe a variety of clients with very different needs. I am not used to working with adults, so things were slightly different. When a client's 2-point touch was not wide enough the correction for an adult is different than for a child. I really like the way Ms. B corrects client's in a way that motivates them. Because I am in the mobility class and dealing with confusion and correction while under the blindfold I feel compassion for the client's during their lesson. I do not enjoy being corrected in a way that comes off harsh or when the teacher does not understand what I am doing.
I look forward to the rest of this summer, and seeing other things I have only read about in action.
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