Here’s how Texas’ 11,000-plus blind or low-vision students train to get around safely

On a sweltering morning near the University of Texas campus, Drew Bernet took me on a walk.

Bernet lost his vision about a decade ago when he was in college and studying to become a veterinarian, which means that in order to get around safely, he uses his smartphone, assistive technology, help from strangers and a long white cane.

As he walked along the sidewalk, he’d gently swing his cane a few inches past his body and tap the ground. He’d then lift it up, swing it to the other side and tap again.

“It’s a side-to-side arc, kind of like a pendulum going back and forth,” he explained.

This technique is called two-point touch and it’s one of many taught in orientation and mobility (O&M) training, the field of study that teaches individuals with blindness and low vision. 

During our walk, Bernet showed me his process for crossing busy intersections. As we approached a street corner, he paused and listened to the flow of traffic.

“I can imagine a line based on the sound of traffic,” he said.

He knew that the streets we were on run on a grid system and connect at 90-degree angles so when he hears cars drive by, he can mentally draw lines and figure out where the intersection is.

Bernet uses this information to align himself and when traffic to his side starts up, he goes for it.

“More times than not, parallel traffic acts as a blocker for any perpendicular traffic,” said Bernet, “and so if you go while they’re going, then it’s relatively safe as you can get for crossing.”

The method Bernet showed me for crossing streets doesn’t rely on guidance from strangers or use of the pedestrian push buttons found on many street corners.

“There’s a lot of buttons that are still older and [not helpful],” he explained. “Relying on the sound of traffic is really the thing to do.”

People who have blindness or low vision have been around forever, but the field of orientation and mobility is relatively new.

“Any kind of formal anything really didn’t start until the veterans from World War II came home blinded and nobody knew what to do with them,” said professor of special education at Texas Tech University Rona Pogrund.

The first university program for O&M instructors was launched at Boston College in 1960 and today there are currently just 19 universities in the U.S. that offer O&M certifications.

Texas has two of them: Texas Tech University and Stephen F. Austin State University.

Each program currently has between 50 and 60 students studying to be visual impairment professionals. In addition to navigation techniques, students learn about the origins of and challenges in living with visual impairments.

The overwhelming majority of people who go into O&M careers are sighted, which means that as part of both Tech and SFA State’s curriculum, students go under blindfold and practice the techniques they’ll be teaching.

“They usually love that because it’s really pretty intense,” said Pogrund. “Some of them are scared and by the end they’re all cool and they love the experience.”

One of the people who went through this process was Bernet, who graduated from SFA State and now works with the Texas School for The Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI).

He’s one of nine O&M trainers who works at TSBVI and he has a caseload of sixteen students who he teaches the same techniques he had to learn for himself.

“The only thing you really need is a white cane,” said Bernet. 

Additional challenges, technological breakthroughs and white cane permanence

In addition to learning cane techniques and other navigation strategies, students enrolled in O&M certification programs also learn to work with populations who have multiple disabilities.

According to the American Foundation for the Blind’s analysis of the 2023 American Community Survey, millions of people with visual impairments report overlapping challenges with mobility, hearing, cognition, self-care or independent living.

In school-aged children, that overlap is even more pronounced.

“Somewhere between 50 and 65 percent of the children we work with have additional disabilities,” said Pogrund. “They might have cerebral palsy or they might have some other kind of physical or intellectual disability or even kids with autism.”

Each year, TSBVI conducts a census where it counts the number of students who receive services for their visual impairments.

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According to the most recent data, just 2,048 of the 10,907 students within the system have visual impairments with no additional disabilities.

An additional challenge in working with younger students who are blind or have low vision is developing an awareness for the world outside of their own bodies and immediate surroundings.

“We basically call this concept development,” said Beverly Jackson, a certified O&M specialist and clinical instructor with the visual impairment program at Stephen F. Austin State University.

This process of how individuals with blindness and low vision build this awareness starts on a small scale, with things they can feel and touch for themselves.

“We need to have lots of hands-on experience with lots of repetition,” said Jackson. “We also need structure and routine to our teachings.”

The better students understand familiar environments, the easier it is to think more abstractly about things like colors, distance and scale.

“We allow them to explore with a little bit of support and supervision as they need it,” explained Jackson, “but then the end goal is that they will initiate that self exploration on their own and when they do that their curiosity starts to run wild.”

Technological breakthroughs have also made the O&M process easier.

People with blindness and low vision use smartphones to quickly plan out trips, get detailed directions and troubleshoot problems they encounter out in the wild.

With the emergence of artificial intelligence, there are also an increasing number of apps and even smart glasses that can use phone cameras to scan and describe environments in real time.

This does not mean, however, that traditional O&M training is going away anytime soon.

“I haven’t figured out anything that’s going to replace the use of a cane,” said Jackson.

Even with the best and most advanced technology, blind and low-vision folks still have to bridge concept gaps and develop problem-solving skills.

“The ability to mentally map your environment and understand the layout of the environment, that is still very necessary” explained Jackson. “You still have to understand how blocks are situated and how corners are related to the blocks and how intersections are positioned.”

When O&M training first started, it was aimed at adults. But as the field has matured, tools and strategies have been tailored down to younger and younger populations. 

Increasingly, blind and low vision children begin tapping around with canes as soon as they’re old enough to physically hold one.

“We have to instill that sense of independence in early age,” said Jackson. “Because if we don’t, we’ve missed the boat and then they get to adulthood and they’re okay with things being done for them and people helping them and not being as independent as they really could be.”

A thrift store voyage: ‘Everyone gets lost’

To see O&M training in practice, I joined Drew Bernet and his 16-year-old TSBVI student, Oscar Garcia.

Bernet will often let more advanced students pick out destinations and plan trips as a way of testing and further developing their orientation and mobility skills.

The day I tagged along, Garcia picked out a Goodwill that was a little over a mile away. 

“I like the antiques,” he explained. “I’ll find some good stuff there.”

To get there and back, Garcia and Bernet would need to board two buses, cross a few intersections and tap their way through a massive parking lot.

“Oscar’s pretty confident,” said Bernet right before they started. “He’s pretty chill.”

The first bus of the day took us a few blocks down the road and dropped us off near an intersection. Then Bernet briefly abandoned his student.

“I’m going to get off the bus,” he explained to Garcia. “I’m going to wait out there.”

He did this so Garcia was forced to practice asking for directions and talking to strangers. O&M training is as much about self-advocacy as it is about cane skills and route planning.

“Excuse me,” Garcia asked the bus driver. “Is it possible I could get some directions to the northbound one, please?”

After getting off the bus, Bernet and Garcia paused and took a moment to listen so they could figure out where the street’s intersection was. But there was a problem.

“I’m not really sure what that sound is over here on your left,” Bernet explained to Garcia.

A separate bus was parked and idling at the street corner while the driver was taking a break for a phone call. 

The bus was so massive and loud it made it hard for Bernet and Garcia to draw the mental lines based on the sound of traffic and figure out where the intersection actually was.

Bernet and Garcia ended up spending about ten minutes listening to the flow of traffic before they were able to orient themselves and find their way over to the intersection. 

They then waited for parallel traffic to start back up and began their crossing.

“Big steps, big steps,” Bernet called out to his student over the noisy cars. “You got to get across.”

Bernet and Garcia safely made it to the other side of the street. Unfortunately, though, they didn’t actually need to cross the street to transfer to the next bus.

This meant that we had to retrace our steps and also that we ran out of time to make it to Goodwill.

“We’ll call the audible today,” said Bernet. “But we’ll plan on picking up and getting to Goodwill next week.”

Part of O&M training is learning how to adjust and come up with backup plans when you get thrown off course.

This means that instead of Goodwill down the road, Bernet and Garcia went to a Walgreens across the street, where Garcia purchased a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and a Pepsi.

Because we were running behind schedule and Garcia needed to get to his next class, they ordered a ride share back to TSBVI and had a discussion about the day’s trip.

“What’d you think of today?” asked Bernet.

“Tired,” Garcia sighed.

The trip to Goodwill was stressful and a little disappointing, but it wasn’t uncommon because most environments weren’t built with people who have blindness or low vision in mind.

Even familiar settings can change in ways that are impossible to predict and disrupt even the best-planned trips.

“My end goal for them is not to get to the point where they don’t get lost, because that’s not realistic for anyone,” said Bernet after we dropped Garcia off at class. “Getting lost when you’re blind may look a little bit different than when you can see, but everyone gets lost.”

Getting lost is the biggest fear among Bernet’s students and when it happens, it’s easy for them to panic. 

As an orientation and mobility professional, Bernet’s job is to help translate those primal feelings into something productive.

“I want them feeling comfortable enough with their problem-solving strategies and with their techniques that when they do get lost,” he explained, “that they can keep their cool and know that they’re going to be able to find their way out of the situation.”

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