Other Rehabilitation and Therapy Commons^™

Teaching Body Awareness To Students With Visual Impairments And Additional Disabilities, Vicki Depountis, Phoebe Okungu, Tracy Hallak, Jennifer Taylor

Bright Ideas Conference

Body awareness, spatial awareness, and positional language, are essential elements of orientation and mobility (O&M). Typically developing students usually learn these concepts and skills incidentally as they interact with various environments. Students with visual impairments and/or multiple disabilities must be deliberately taught these concepts using research-based strategies. Routine-based learning, integration of music, picture and tactile communication, and physical and verbal guidance have been shown to enhance learning by students with visual impairments and/or multiple disabilities. When these strategies are incorporated into individually designed structured movement routines (SMRs), students are more likely to anticipate movements and connect language to corresponding O&M …