The Visual Field Newsletter-June 2016

ECC Spotlight: Orientation and Mobility
The Southeast Orientation and Mobility Association (SOMA) Conference Overview by Elizabeth Anderson, COMS, Hillsborough County Schools

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Over 300 professionals with an interest in the field of Orientation and Mobility (O&M) got on board at Southeast O&M Association’s 50^th Anniversary Conference in Chattanooga, held March 12-15, 2016.  More than 60 sessions were available, covering a range of topics from assessments in O&M to technology.

Two sessions focused on auditory skills and O&M, especially when considering a student who has a hearing loss.  Tools and information were shared about how to conduct an informal functional hearing evaluation, which may assess a student’s ability to discriminate, identify, and localize sounds in his or her environment.  The importance of working with a student’s audiologist was also highlighted. A student’s hearing loss and/or assistive listening devices may impact the ability to use echolocation, auditory cues, and traffic sounds when crossing a street.  Another consideration is that hearing aids are typically programmed to enhance speech recognition, at the expense of environmental sounds.  Consider talking to your student’s audiologist about adding a program that doesn’t cut out environmental sounds.  If a student has an FM system, use the FM when giving information or directions and then turn it off when the student is traveling.  FM systems only receive sounds from the microphone, which eliminates environmental sounds for the student.  In the words of the presenter, “Kill the FM before the FM kills you!”

One session addressed several studies on how to influence driver yielding behavior, with some surprising results.  In one study, simply holding a cane had little to no effect on drivers.  The behaviors with the most impact, in order of effectiveness were: the reversible step, holding up a hand with palm facing out to oncoming traffic / stop gesture, and flagging the cane.  Interestingly, another study showed that yes, drivers are more likely to yield to a white cane with red tip, rather than a black, green, or orange cane.  So, if you have students that are too young to be crossing streets, feel free to have fun with the colored canes.

A variety of sessions had to do with new technology.  A session from APH on the Nearby Explorer GPS app revealed that the full version of this app is available for students on quota funds.  This $99 version includes turn-by-turn directions and a hefty amount of map data that requires an external SD card.  Currently this app is only available on Android, with an iOS release planned for Fall 2016.  In addition, this app accesses Open Street Maps, which uses open source data to make maps more detailed and ultimately useful.  Another session said: “Autonomous Vehicles – They’re Coming!”  And yes, these vehicles are coming to Downtown Tampa in several years for a pilot study on connected cars.  Efforts are currently underway to figure out how this technology will be accessible for pedestrians with visual impairments.

Attending the SOMA conference is a great way to keep up with the latest research and developments in O&M.  If you missed this conference, the next conference is slated to take place in Tallahassee, 2018.  For handouts from this conference and updates on the upcoming conference, visit somaconference.org.