SOMA/COMA Conference
Program Session Descriptions
SATURDAY September 29, 2012
10:00-5:30 Pre-conference all-day concurrent workshops
- Overview and Field Practice Using the Trekker Breeze to Create Routes and Establish a Position in Space Craig Phillips (PARTICIPANT LIMIT: 10)
This hands-on, feet-moving workshop begins with learning about GPS and ends with creating routes from the address entry feature.
The day is divided into a morning session to learn about the parameters of GPS and for orientation to the device, a working lunch to practice with the settings menu, and an afternoon session of route creations on the street and in open areas using Landmarks, Points of Interest, and the Address Entry feature.
Bring your own Trekker Breeze or one will be provided to use during the workshop.
We walk on average 3-4 miles during the day.
(This session is ALREADY FILLED)
- Essentials of O&M with People Who are Deaf-Blind Dr. Eugene Bourquin
This workshop will review the major areas of O&M theory and practice related to consumers with dual sensory loss, including the characteristics of deaf-blind populations, communication, the impact of hearing loss on standard O&M practices, and working with audiologists and interpreters.
- Assistive Technology and the Web -- Promoting Self-Determination for Non-Drivers in the 21st Century Kevin Hollinger
This feet-in-the-street workshop will provide hands-on experience using apps and assistive technologies for web-based maps on computers and IOS devices for orientation and environmental analysis, route scouting and planning, and accessing public transit and taxi cabs. Additionally, we'll discuss/demonstrate how to generalize these skills and concepts to other AT devices such as a note-taker, Trekker Breese, Kapten Plus, and others.
- Teaching to cross at roundabouts and separate right-turning lanes Dona Sauerburger
This feet-in-the-street session will provide tools for teaching students to cross at separate right-turning lanes and roundabouts.
Participants will review features that affect position and alignment and determining when to cross.
Participants will then become "students" learning to recognize and deal with Situations of Uncertainty.
They will then go outside with blindfolds and canes to separate right-turning lanes and roundabouts to apply what they had learned to analyze and cross.
(This session is ALREADY FILLED but may open up to accept more people -- contact Dona Sauerburger to sign up.)
6:00-7:00 Blindfold walk to restaurant (dinner on your own)
SUNDAY September 30, 2012
Pre-conference concurrent workshops
9:00-12:00
These 3-hour workshops are designed to be taken as a whole, but they have been divided into two parts so that you can leave or join them at 10:30 to attend another workshop.
At 10:30 (when Part 2 starts for most sessions) there is an additional 90-minute session on Problem-Solving.
- Assessment Tools for O&M / NMSBVI O&M Inventory Ron Later and Karen Walker
You are encouraged to bring your laptop for more individual, hands-on experience.
- PART 1: This session will review various assessment tools utilized in O&M, discussing the pros and cons and differences between them
and considerations for which might be most effective for different situations.
One of these assessment tools is the extensive, free web-based NMSBVI O&M Inventory and we are delighted that its developer, Ron Later, accepted our invitation to come from New Mexico.
In Part 1 he will explain and share examples using it.
- PART 2: Participants will have hands-on experience using the NMSBVI O&M Inventory to assess, determine student needs, and quickly write detailed progress reports, O&M evaluations, and IEP goals.
Orientation and Maps: the "nuts and bolts of O&M" Diane Brauner
- PART 1: Foundation ORIENTATION skills for young students will be identified and
broken down into easily taught steps. A multitude of concrete activities
will be presented to help teach orientation skills in fun, motivating ways.
- PART 2:
Participants will learn a variety of strategies for building spatial
concepts and foundation MAP skills, including when/how to introduce tactile map
skills to young students and easy ways to create quality maps.
Drivers Yielding to Pedestrians Dr. Eugene Bourquin, Dr. Duane Geruschat, Dona Sauerburger
- PART 1: Presenters will share the results of their innovative research regarding
yielding of drivers to pedestrians at roundabouts; at uncontrolled
crossings; and at signals. Duane Geruschat blazed the trail in research
about drivers' yielding behavior to resolve a controversy between the
traffic engineering and the blindness communities, and Gene Bourquin has
been described as "nuts" for the part he played in a bold research design to
find out how pedestrians can make it more likely that drivers will yield.
- PART 2: Participants will discuss how we might determine the effectiveness of
various strategies to get drivers to yield. Are drivers more likely to
yield if we turn our head to face them? Should we post signs saying "Blind
pedestrian"? Are drivers more aware of pedestrians who hold out their arm
as they cross? How could these questions be answered?
Monday afternoon at 3:45 this discussion will be followed up
during the Wells Signal session, when you can help design and participate in
a pilot study of the effectiveness of holding out an arm to make drivers
more aware of the pedestrian.
Problem Solving in O&M: Strategies for Advancing Our Students' Skills Fabiana Perla and Betsy O'Donnell
This 90-minute workshop is presented at 10:30-12:00 (the same time as "Part 2" for other workshops).
This presentation will look at problem-solving as it relates to O&M assessment and instruction. It will provide a problem-solving model and concrete strategies that can be easily incorporated into everyday lessons. The presentation will be interactive and focus on solutions to common challenges.
EXHIBITS OPEN ONE DAY ONLY! Sunday 12:00-6:30 PM
1:15-3:00 General session
Keynote: Orientation and Mobility: The First 100 Years
Dr. Rick Welsh will review the significant trends in the development of O&M, including a tongue-in-cheek projection of what lies ahead.
Exhibit highlights
Exhibitors will each tell us what's new and on display
3:15 - 4:15 concurrent
- Getting from Here to There and Knowing Where: Teaching GPS to the Traveler with a Visual Impairment Craig Phillips
GPS and O&M are made for each other.
By providing a "virtual doorway" to the environment, the traveler with a visual impairment now has more opportunities to interact with the environment and develop "environmental literacy" leading to control in the environment.
This session will discuss the parameters of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) technology and examples of how to effectively use the information.
- The Accelerated Mobility Program Sarah Johnson, Meredith Griffin, Erica Ihrke
This lecture will teach participants about a unique O&M delivery model called the Accelerated Mobility Program (AMP). In traditional models, adults usually take 3-6 months of training to become an independent traveler. AMP is a week-long class that focuses just on O&M, so the learning process is uninterrupted and travel skills instruction can occur in a condensed time frame. Participants will learn how this model can be of assistance by providing foundational, supplemental, or brush-up O&M training for eligible clients.
- The Expanded Core Curriculum and O&M - Mickey Damelio
The Expanded Core Curriculum isn't and shouldn't be just for TVI's to teach. The O&M instructor can teach so much more than walking safely. This style of teaching mobility makes the learning really stick while meeting the needs of the whole child.
- History of the Long Cane -More Exciting than you might guess Dr. Grace Ambrose-Zaken
This presentation will describe how society's misconceptions about congenital and acquired blindness were so insidious that even those who invented the long cane and created orientation and mobility (O&M), never fully understood how many people needed their inventions nor the urgency of that need. The long white cane with a red tip has the potential to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, but it continues to be shunned by those who could benefit most from its use.
4:15 - 5:00 Exhibits
You will have time to enjoy what's new at the exhibits
5:00 - 6:30 RECEPTION
6:30 - ??? HOSPITALITY SUITE
MONDAY October 1, 2012
Full breakfast provided
8:30 - 9:30 Concurrent Sessions
- The ACB's of GPS Jenine Stanley
This session will present the Guide Dog Foundation's teaching model for GPS devices. We have taught people to use both Trekker and Trekker Breeze and have evaluated a number of other GPs solutions through our Alumni Council. Our teaching model utilizes consumers and practical experiences to bring GPS into someone's mobility toolbox.
- The New Art of Teaching: TAGteach© -- Jennifer Thurman
Learn the fundamentals of positive reinforcement teaching methods with the TAGteach© method (TAG stands for Teaching with Acoustical Guidance).
The TAGteach© method has been used to teach muscle memory by professionals such as gymnastic trainers, physical therapists and golf instructors, and has application to O&M instruction. You will leave this session knowing how to teach new behaviors, stop unwanted behaviors and create a positive learning environment.
- Providing O&M instruction to clients with a prosthetic vision implant (artificial sight) Dr. Duane Geruschat
The possibility of offering partial sight to the blind is upon us. Clients with prosthetic vision are now beginning to receive O&M services following implantation. A curriculum that has been developed to teach the use of prosthetic vision will be described.
- An Online Personnel Preparation Program in O&M: Is This the Future of Our Profession?Dr. William H. Jacobson
This session will discuss the efficacy of the course delivery system associated with online and face-to-face O&M classe as presented by The University of Arkansas at Little Rock's O&M Program. Attention will be paid to the hybrid nature of the program that mixes online didactic courses with on campus methods courses and student teaching. A 10-year analysis of the program will be presented that looks at successes and challenges to the hybrid course delivery system.
- International Guide Dog Federation Conference Update -- Moderator: Lukas Franck
A review by all who attended the IGDF conference for all who didn't. There will be posters and old guide dog films that were shown at the conference.
9:45 - 10:45 Concurrent Session
- Using Accessible Maps to Teach Location Literacy lecture Mike May and Katie Gilmore
The term "location literacy" refers to access to the print that appears outdoors, on buildings and any landmark that identifies a place in the environment. Location literacy is especially important to blind individuals because they cannot navigate by visually scanning environment, have limited access to what is around, and consequently are dependent on others for directions or descriptions. Accessible GPS systems are great in providing real-time travel information for the users. However, in classroom situations, it makes more sense to have a program that allows the student to virtually navigate on the maps using a PC.
- Modern roundabouts - a discussion of safety, efficiency, and accessibility tradeoffs Dr. Bastian Schroeder and Chris Cunningham
There is no description for this session yet.
- Clicker Training and Dog Guides Jennifer Thurman
(NOTE: This session is intended for O&M specialists.) Have you ever wondered if it is possible to teach a dog guide to locate an empty chair in a crowded room? This task and several other equally challenging skill sets will be discussed in this presentation.
- Ability Beyond the Horizon India 2012 Mickey Damelio
Learn what adventures Ability Beyond the Horizon had this past summer in Hyderabad, India. Participants will come away with perspectives on visual impairment and O&M from a different culture as well as how you may be able to get involved in future trips.
11:00 - 12:00 Concurrent Session
- Accessible GPS Options: from the iPhone to the PC Mike May and Katie Gilmore
This presentation explains the common aspects and the differences of the various accessible GPS systems on the market. The question is no longer if a blind person should have access to the surrounding location information but rather what are one's individual wayfinding requirements and which system best addresses those needs.
- How traffic signals work and why you should learn about them Dr. Bastian Schroeder and Chris Cunningham
There is no description for this session yet.
- New Virtual and Tactile Exploration Products from APH Maria Delgado
This workshop will explore new products from the American Printing House. Products include APH Talking PC Maps, virtual map exploration software; Tactile Town, 3-D O and M kit, and Treks, the game of compass directions.
- Social networking: Nirvana or Nightmare Jenine Stanley
Do you know how to use Facebook and Twitter to promote yourself as a COMS? Can you use these tools to communicate with consumers? Learn how non-profits and individuals can use social networking and avoid pitfalls in this interactive workshop.
- Competency-based hiring evaluation and training for apprentice guide dog trainers -- Rod Haneline
The presenter will explain the apprentice program at Leader Dogs for the Blind.
Hot buffet lunch will be provided
1:30 - 3:30 Concurrent Workshops
Liability & O&M Ruth Ann Marsh, Mark Richart, Karen Walker
There is no description for this session yet.
When Blindness Comes with Brain Injury: Facts and Practical Interventions Cynthia Iskow
This expansive, yet practical presentation gives a basic overview of the consequences that brain injuries can have on a client's learning and behavior, particularly in the rehabilitation setting. It discusses myths and facts, references research in the fields of brain injury and blind rehabilitation, explains common changes in behavior, and gives strategies for instructional rehabilitation settings (inpatient, outpatient, center-based, and itinerant.)
Sensory Awareness Ideas for Kids and Adults Al Kaufman
Participants will learn about the various senses, including things such as kinestetic and manipulative abilities. Games and exercises that may be done with individuals and small groups in order to facilitate the use of senses besides vision will be explained and demonstrated. Differences in teaching sensory skills to adventitiously blind versus genetically blind will also be discussed.
Structured Discovery Learning in the Mainstream Mandi Bundren, Maurice Peret, and Jennifer Kennedy
In an interactive session wherein everyone is encouraged to participate, presenters will discuss methods and approaches they use in teaching independent movement and travel to blind and low vision consumers across the lifespan, including with children, youth,
adults, and seniors.
While the structured discovery methodology is most often associated with immersion-based adult residential training centers, its
proponents also apply its fundamental learning approach in itinerant
settings, working with seniors, and in "traditional" non-immersion training centers.
Hands-on GPS Treasure Hunt Mike May and Katie Gilmore
[repeated Monday at 3:45 and Tuesday morning] Teams of 3 to 5 people will use the GPS to explore the area around the hotel, each lead by a GPS expert. Compete against the other teams to find several treasures using the GPS and be first to the meeting place to win a prize.
Along the way, you will learn to appreciate the importance of location information. You will set destinations and follow routes. You will learn how to do problem solving when there is ambiguous information. You will learn first hand the power of "getting unlost" and the joy of finding your way independently with audible information.
(This Treasure Hunt session is ALREADY FILLED -- contact Dona Sauerburger to add your name to the waiting list.)
Quality dog teams from the "Toyota assembly line" -- Guide Dogs for the Blind staff
Lessons learned from the guide dog training program at Guide Dogs for the Blind -- structuring and embracing change in a dog guide school setting, and approaching common dog guide training problems from the perspective of operant conditioning.
3:45 - 5:45 Concurrent Workshops
Travel Instruction: Understanding the profession and developing a collaborative learning process Bonnie Dodson-Burk, Jay Furlong, Patti Voorhees
This workshop provides an overview of travel instruction and common functional manifestations of individuals with autism, physical challenges, and intellectual disabilities. Working in small groups learners will develop instructional strategies by working on sample case studies.
(This session is ALREADY FILLED -- contact Dona Sauerburger to add your name to the waiting list.)
The Wells Signal Sophia Leduck
This session will introduce and provide outside demonstrations of the Wells Signal for increasing pedestrian visibility and safety and driver cooperation during street crossings. Participants will develop and execute a pilot test of the effectiveness of the Wells Signal at a nearby intersection, and debrief results.
Mobile APP Toolkit for O&M specialists Andrea Bodnari
Ms. Bodnari is an experienced teacher and mobility specialist with additional knowledge of mobile devices and apps that have been great for student use in the community. Come learn about the possibilities and practice with various apps to find ones that will benefit your students/clients.
Critical Movement Interventions for Young Children with Visual Impairment and Blindness Carla Brown
This author will present an overview of the research addressing early motor patterns of young children with blindness and visual impairment with specific interventions that are critical for later O&M skills. Resources from the Developmentally appropriate orientation and mobility training manual developed through the Early Intervention Center for Infants and Toddlers with Visual Impairments will be shared.
Hands-on GPS Treasure Hunt Mike May and Katie Gilmore
[repeated Monday afternoon at 1:30 and Tuesday morning] Teams of 3 to 5 people will use the GPS to explore the area around the hotel, each lead by a GPS expert. Compete against the other teams to find several treasures using the GPS and be first to the meeting place to win a prize.
Along the way, you will learn to appreciate the importance of location information. You will set destinations and follow routes. You will learn how to do problem solving when there is ambiguous information. You will learn first hand the power of "getting unlost" and the joy of finding your way independently with audible information.
(This Treasure Hunt session is ALREADY FILLED -- contact Dona Sauerburger to add your name to the waiting list.)
The Swiss Army knife: Can one dog do it all?? -- Lee Stanway
Lee will discuss experiments underway in the UK to combine guide dog training with seizure-alert training, or diabetic-alert training, or hearing-dog training to produce multi-skilled dogs.
6:00-7:00 Blindfold walk to restaurant (dinner on your own)
TUESDAY MORNING October 2, 2012
Full breakfast provided
8:30 - 10:45 Concurrent Workshops
- I hear with my Little Ears: Teaching Auditory Object Perception (AOP) Diane Brauner
Auditory Optical Perception is the ability to use reflected sound waves to gather an astounding amount of useful information about the surrounding environment. Participants will be shown how to teach students with visual impairments to interpret sound waves in order to describe characteristics (height, width, density and "texture") of an object. Participants will learn a variety of exciting, progressive activities that will successfully teach AOP to even the youngest O&M student! Although often overlooked, AOP is a critical orientation skill that can be incorporated effortlessly into all O&M routes.
- Incorporating Location Technology into O&M Sarah Johnson, Meredith Griffin, Erica Ihrke
Through a "feet-on-the-street" workshop, this session will demonstrate best practices for incorporating location technology into O&M lessons. This session is not intended to teach participants how to use location technology; they will learn to incorporate it into 15 O&M lessons. Participants may bring their own device or borrow a Kapsys Kapten PLUS.
- O&M for students with autism Nicole Weidenbaum
There is no description for this session yet.
- Hands-on GPS Treasure Hunt Mike May and Katie Gilmore
[repeated twice Monday afternoon] Teams of 3 to 5 people will use the GPS to explore the area around the hotel, each lead by a GPS expert. Compete against the other teams to find several treasures using the GPS and be first to the meeting place to win a prize.
Along the way, you will learn to appreciate the importance of location information. You will set destinations and follow routes. You will learn how to do problem solving when there is ambiguous information. You will learn first hand the power of "getting unlost" and the joy of finding your way independently with audible information.
(This Treasure Hunt session is ALREADY FILLED -- contact Dona Sauerburger to add your name to the waiting list.)
- Guide Dogs Issues with Stairs: Origins and Resolutions -- Lukas Franck
This session will cover basic research which examined how young guide dogs learn to do stairs, and a method for remediating stair issues in young dogs in training.
10:45 - 12:00 Crackerbarrel Sessions
- O&M Crackerbarrel
A "Barrel" will be posted at the registration table during the conference, and people are invited to write down topics they would like to discuss during the Crackerbarrel.
Topics for this session will each be chosen from the "barrel" and discussed for a few minutes before moving on to the next topic.
- Animal-Cracker Barrel
Sit down to discuss issues in the guide dog field.
12:00 - 12:30 Closing - WRAP-UP
Traditionally, SOMA uses this time slot to discuss where the next SOMA conference will be held.