WORKSHOPS | CHECKLISTS | OUTLINE | INDEX | Section 1 | Section 2 | Section 3 | Section 4 |Section 5 | REVIEW | QUIZ / CERTIFICATE |


Self-Study Guide: Preparing Visually Impaired Students
to Assess and Cross Streets with No Stop Sign or Traffic Signal

photo shows a stick figure with question marks around the head. It is facing a crosswalk of two lanes -- about 20 feet to the right, cars are going around a roundabout -- it is unclear whether they will continue to circle the roundabout, or approach the crosswalk. Photo shows a person standing on an island waiting to cross one lane of right-turning traffic. A crosswalk is painted from the island across one lane to the sidewalk on the corner. A long line of cars is approaching the crosswalk, and there is no traffic signal for that traffic. Photo shows Dona and two participants in the gazebo. Dona is talking with animation. Photo shows Dona holding a small tape recorder and standing in the straight street talking to Paul and Jomania who are standing on the curb. Photo shows a row of computers, with one woman sitting in front of a computer and another woman standing behind her, both of them laughing and triumphantly throwing their hands up. Other women sit at other computers and a man points to something on one of their screens.

DEDICATED TO DICK AND LORRAINE EVENSEN,
whose deaths in 1987 alerted us to the insidious changes at streets with no traffic control, such as Situations of Uncertainty,
AND GORDON PARKS, who was killed in 2010 while crossing in a Situation of Uncertainty.
May their memory inspire and remind us to prepare our students to assess and cross these streets safely.

Welcome -- enjoy your adventure through these pages!
    What our students should know for crossings with no traffic signal or stop sign:
    • There are situations where we can be confident about when it is clear to cross ("Situations of Confidence"),
          and situations where we can not, even when it is quiet and/or we see nothing coming ("Situations of Uncertainty").
    • Our students need to be able to recognize Situations of Uncertainty, and Situations of Confidence.
    • At Situations of Uncertainty, they need to analyze the risk of crossing, and use alternatives when the risk is unacceptable.
    • At Situations of Confidence, they need to know how to reliably determine crossable gaps in traffic.
       Each of these is fully addressed in this Self-Study Guide.

    Goals of training
      Click here if you want to peek ahead at the goals for our students (these will be introduced in Section 2).

Self-Study Guide
    The Self-Study Guide has 5 sections:

    • Section 1: Introduction to Situations of Uncertainty
        What is a Situation of Uncertainty and how can we recognize it?
          (research; best practice)
    • Section 2: Teaching students to recognize Situations of Uncertainty
        How can we teach students to recognize Situations of Uncertainty?
          (learning crossing time; Procedure to Develop Judgment of the Detection of Traffic; assessing situations with TMAD)
    • Section 3: You are in a Situation of Uncertainty -- What Now?
        What to do when you are in a Situation of Uncertainty?
          (analyzing risks; making decisions; considering what is "safe" and alternatives)
    • Section 4: Teaching students to determine when there is a crossable gap in traffic
        When they are in Situations of Confidence, teaching students to determine when they have time to cross
          (learning the effect of masking sounds; judging the speed and distance of vehicles)
    • Section 5: Applications! Vignettes, Frequently Asked Questions, and Workshop Suggestions
        Case studies (vignettes), frequently asked questions, "freaky findings" and workshop suggestions

    Helpful links
      At the top of every page in the Self-Study Guide is a navigation bar with the following links:
      • Section (#?) (in the top left corner) has a list of the contents of each page in that section.
      • Self-Study Guide has a link back to this page.
      • OUTLINE links to a table of contents for the Self-Study Guide, listing the topic for each page.
      • INDEX has an alphabetized list of topics from Sections 1-4, and links to find them.
      • CHECKLISTS are cheat-sheets for teaching students and using the procedures
      • REVIEW has study questions covering all the essential information.

      Additional links in the navigation bar at the top of the first page of each Section are:
      • WORKSHOPS links to a flyer and schedule of workshops in this topic
      • QUIZ/CERTIFICATE explains how to take the quiz and earn a certificate of completion.

    Printing out the Self-Study Guide
      Each of the first 4 Sections can be downloaded in a Word document for printing or browsing (Section 5 is already on a single web page). The web version of the Self-Study Guide has videos and descriptions of all the photos, but the Word version has none of these. Links to each Section are below:
    Testing your understanding -- a learning tool!
      The Self-Study Guide has a quiz designed to indicate which areas you need to review further. For more information about the quiz, click here. To get the code needed to take the quiz at no cost as a learning tool, contact me.
Certificate of Completion and ACVREP Credit
    You can earn 3 hours of ACVREP-approved CE credit as well as a Certificate of Completion that indicates you have mastered the material. For more information, click here.
Commitment to Prepare Students
    More than 300 O&M Early Adopters have completed this Self-Study Guide or taken a workshop and committed themselves to "incorporate (and/or develop!) teaching tools and strategies to prepare students to recognize situations of uncertainty for gap judgment, and analyze and cross streets with no traffic control."

    You would be welcome to join other Early Adopters who are teaching these skills and concepts to prepare students for crossings with no traffic control -- we can learn from each other! Early Adopters have already introduced more ideas and advanced the teaching tools more in the last 6 months than I was able to do in the last 10 years.
    For example:
    • extensive checklists have been developed to facilitate our instruction of these skills and concepts;
    • the flow chart in Section 2 was developed by an Early Adopter
    • people are learning to use their hearing to judge how far away are the approaching vehicles (I had only taught people to use vision);
    • strategies of scanning for cars are being refined; and
    • teaching tools are being adapted to introduce these concepts to young children and people with brain injury.

    If you would like to join a listserv for Early Adopters to exchange ideas, ask questions of those who are teaching this, and share concerns, let me know.

Ready? Let's begin!
    To start the Self-Study Guide, click below on the link labeled "NEXT" -- enjoy!




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