[Blind-rollers] Update from Melbourne

[Penny Stevenson]

Hi there all,
Thank you to all who have responded to me privately regarding their individual situations.

On Friday I had a great session with my client and his Occupational Therapist. We took a power chair out onto his street. To put this lesson into perspective this is his third lesson with a long cane and second time he was in the outdoors with a power chair.

He had a bit of difficulty getting out his front door and managed to drive off the path that leads down to his front gate. That was perhaps not the best start but once we got out onto the street it was much easier.
The thing that surprised me most was how straight a line he was able to keep.

The other thing that surprised me was how similar this lesson was to other long cane lessons. We veered down a driveway to the road and had to work out how to get back up to the footpath again for example.

In my last lesson I of course was pushing the manual chair whereas this lesson because he was in the power chair and self propelling we were able to start working a lot more on problem solving strategies and increasing his conceptual understanding.

He got stuck a few times so it was great having the OT there to teach him the skills to help him get unstuck.

He had trouble detecting the edge of a curb, just like any other new long cane user does - so more practice there. We also need to practice aligning the chair to the curb better... so we get a straight line of travel across the road. Apart from how I would do this with a regular cane user - any suggestions from you as users?

I'm just about to jump on the phone to the local council to discuss getting some road works done so he can access his local shops and maybe even access the bus stop...

I'm also hoping to get him joining the list so he can start sharing his own story.
>From Penny

Penny Stevenson
Orientation and Mobility Specialist
Vision Australia

Monday, Tuesday, Friday
346 Macaulay Rd. (Cnr Stubbs St. - Enter via Stubbs St.)
Kensington, VIC, 3031
Direct line: 03  8378 1183

Wednesday, Thursday
45 Princes Highway
Dandenong, VIC, 3175
Direct line: 8791 0209

General: 1300 847 466
Fax: 1300 847 329 (1300 VIS FAX)
www.visionaustralia.org.au<http://www.visionaustralia.org.au>
ABN: 67 108 391 831
ACN: 108 391 831


______________________________________________________________________
This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service.
For more information please visit http://www.symanteccloud.com
______________________________________________________________________