BASIC SKILLS 

• Cane:
  • Constant-contact / Touch techniques
  • Stairs
  • Explore objects contacted with cane
  • Shorelining / trailing with cane
  • Negotiate obstacles contacted by cane
    • Walk around obstacles or corners without tripping on obstacle or corner
    • step up to cane/edge skillfully
  • Modification when walking with a guide
  • Cane technique maintained without concentration
  • Cane information (obstacles / drop-offs) noticed when distracted
  • Able to use cane in either hand
  • Locating door handles
  • Technique for using a cane in a crowd
  • Explanations
    • Three things that cane won't warn of
    • Reason for (and decision of) centering hand
    • Reason for keeping in step
• Human guide:
  • Narrow passages
  • Doorways
  • Stairs
  • Seating in a chair; at a table
  • Opening the door for a female guide
  • What the guide needs to know
  • Locating objects by following guide's arm
• Maintain orientation through building
  • Builds a cognitive map
  • Is aware of direction/space whenever turning
  • Maintains orientation when guided (including turns)
• Kinesthetic sense:
  • Maintains line around obstacle
  • Accurate turns (active and passive/guided)
  • Distance measurement while walking
• Hearing
  • Localization
  • Echolocation:
    • Detect corners / openings / walls
    • Determine room size / distance of wall
• Vision:
  • Able to combine visual with nonvisual/cane information
  • Eccentric viewing (for central visual field loss)
  • Scanning for objects (for peripheral visual field loss)
• Car familiarization
• Hand and forearm techniques: Upper, Lower
• Trailing with hand
• Squaring off
• Direction-taking
• Room familiarization:
  
  • Can familiarize self to new room
  • Uses landmarks
  • Drop-off (reorient in room / building without assistance after being intentionally disoriented)
• Locating dropped objects:
  • Three techniques for getting down while protecting head
    
• Problem-solving:
  Review process for problem-solving
  • Is able to recognize when there's a problem
  • Applies problem-solving process
    
    
OUTSIDE TRAVEL

• Sidewalk travel:
  • Cane technique maintained / snags controlled
  • Three-point touch cane technique
  • Recovery from veer in driveway
  • Features of driveways vs. streets
  • Use of sound shadows and echolocation
• Orientation:
  • Use of sun for orientation
  • Use of features and landmarks
  • Drop-off (reorient in familiar community without assistance after being intentionally disoriented)
• Street crossing
  • General street-crossing skills and concepts:
    • Understand typical intersection geometry (corners, curbs / curbcuts, etc.)
    • Understand typical traffic patterns (travel on right, turning movements, etc. -- may teach with simulation)
    • Recognize street edge
    • Determine width of street / distance of passing vehicles
    • Develop an intuitive undertanding of crossing time for streets of various widths
    • Initial alignment strategies
      • Maintain line of travel
      • Use traffic sounds
      • Curb alignment inside from corner
      • Return and approach again, maintaining line of travel
      • Memorize angle of curb after familiarizing self to alignment
    • Maintain straight line of travel during crossing
    • Recover from veer
    • Determine sources of danger and level of risk
    • Know how to reduce / avoid risk
    • Know and use alternative strategies when risk is not acceptable
    • Analyze unfamiliar intersections -- determine:
      • Geometry (width of street, angle of intersecting streets, presence of islands, etc.)
      • Traffic control (signal, stop sign, no traffic control)
      • Appropriate crossing technique
  • Crossings with no traffic control
    • Recognize situations of uncertainty for gap judgment
    • Understand pedestrian laws
    • Analyze risk of crossing
    • As appropriate:
      • understand the effect of masking and blocking traffic sounds
      • judge gap length of approaching traffic
      • visually scan / glance for traffic efficiently
  • Signalized intersections
    • Actuation
    • Analyze traffic pattern
    • Determine best time to cross
      • surge of near-lane-parallel traffic and when it is appropriate to use
    • Sources of danger and strategies to reduce risk
    • Use pedestrian buttons / WALK signals
    • Accessible pedestrian signals
  • Roundabouts and Separate (channelized) right-turning lanes
    • ideas for crossing at roundabouts and separate right-turning lanes
      
      

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