Having the skills to do what you want, when you want and where you want was the focus of the recent Orientation and Mobility Association of Australasia (OMAA) Conference, which explored research, new ways of practice, and emerging technologies.

Orientation and mobility skills enable people who are blind or have low vision to navigate their environment in a safe and effective way.

The conference, convened by NextSense Institute, offered perspectives from both the professionals that support orientation and mobility, and from people who are blind or have low vision who use these skills in their everyday lives.

Conference keynote speaker Daniel Kish is Managing Director of World Access for the Blind and an orientation and mobility specialist. As well as addressing the delegates, Daniel joined the NextSense Institute podcast to speak about creating a framework for self-determined freedom.

‘When it comes to blindness in particular, this freedom first idea tends to, I think, take a back seat in people's minds, whether kind of consciously or unconsciously. There's more of a sense of ... doing for or even doing to rather than doing with.’

Daniel spoke about the importance of the support he received from his mother growing up where he was ‘free to enjoy the same freedoms and responsibilities of others.’

He also spoke about how he collaborates with children who are blind or have low vision and their families to provide orientation and mobility skills training, encouraging them to focus on the future and what they might need to know as they move through life.

Listen to Daniel discuss his keynote with our Manager of Professional Education Trudy Smith in episode 134 of our podcast.

The conference also heard from Professor John Ravenscroft, Chair of Childhood Vision Impairment at the University of Edinburgh, who spoke about supporting cerebral visual impairment (CVI) through daily living activities, and orientation and mobility.

CVI is a brain-based visual impairment caused by damage to the visual pathways or the visual processing of the brain. There is no global agreed definition of CVI, and the impact is highly individualised. It can affect what’s known as lower visual processing—acuity (sharpness or clarity of vision), light, colour, contrast and movement—and higher visual processing, such as visual memory, facial and spatial recognition, and the ability to understand written text.

John said that understanding and being aware of the child’s unique experience of vision loss with CVI—including conscious and unconscious processing—was key to providing effective support strategies.

Listen to John discuss this topic in more detail in episode 132 of our podcast.

Momoka Hirai, an architect from the National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities in Japan, discussed the challenges people who are blind or have low vision face navigating indoor spaces when environments don’t facilitate orientation, by including tactile paving blocks on pavements for example. As part of a study, her team looked at simple markers that could enable people with vision loss to better customise their environment.

They engaged people who are blind or have low vision and their sighted colleagues to apply a special tactile floor tape to eight different indoor facilities. The results showed that simple, low-cost markers like this can be very useful for navigating and understanding an environment.

Orientation and mobility specialists Diana Grobler and Carina Lewis from GuideDogs also spoke about tailoring the use of existing technology to benefit clients. They gave the example of a client mounting a portable Miniguide device on her four-wheeled walker, which provides information about obstacles and gaps through haptic feedback and audible beeping.

NextSense Publications Officer Tristan Clare delivered a keynote address with her brother Ben. Tristan and Ben are both blind and they discussed the challenges and opportunities of navigating the world locally and globally—with Tristan discussing shifting from navigating work to navigating for life, and Ben focusing on travel in unfamiliar, hazardous environments.

You can read more about Tristan in this article or listen to her and Ben on episode 133 of our podcast.

The theme of this year’s conference was ‘Independent and Working Together’.

The conference aimed to unite and empower professionals that support orientation and mobility for people who are blind, deafblind or have low vision through working collaboratively with clients, family, clients’ supports, team members and other professionals involved in vision rehabilitation services.

Bronwyn Greager, Head of Early Intervention and Therapy Services (pictured above with Rebecca Maxwell, Network Manager - Macquarie), enjoyed the networking opportunities the conference offered. ‘It was wonderful to meet so many O&M professionals from various organisations and parts of Australia – from Townsville to Melbourne to Adelaide,’ she says.

Through our early intervention service, NextSense helps children and their families build capacity in sensory, concept and social and emotional development. We also support motor skills and movement, and environmental awareness.

This can include everything from supporting gross motor development to introducing special concepts, teaching self-advocacy skills, encouraging safe exploration of spaces and pre-cane and mobility awareness.