By: Carmen Willings teachingvisuallyimpaired.com March 24, 2024
According to Fazzi and Petersmeyer (Imagining the possibilities: Creative approaches to orientation and mobility instruction for persons who are visually impaired, AFB Press 2001), “development of spatial awareness helps students understand the placement, arrangement, and spacing of persons or things in relation to one another.” O&M specialists will play an important role in teaching spatial concepts to the student. Spatial awareness concepts apply not only to education but relate directly to travel. Spatial concepts include body awareness and spatial awareness. As with other concepts, direct experiences will help the student learn the concept. Physical experiences will help lay the foundation for development. Once a student has learned the concepts using their own bodies, they can then develop concepts related to models and representations.
(ex. on, off, in, out, front, back, left, right, up, down, above, below, top, bottom, in front, behind, on top, underneath, next to, beside, through, middle, center, between, here, there, under, over, upside down, right side up, first, last, together, apart, forward, backward, sideways, straight, there, under, etc.) Suggestions for instruction:
Take advantage of opportunities throughout the day to point out the position of materials/objects in the environment.
Create games to encourage the students to place themselves or materials in relation to other items.
Encourage the student to demonstrate the concepts on their own bodies, from the student's body to an object, and between two objects.
Encourage activities that will develop the student's body concept such as large movement games that include rolling, crawling, walking backward and sideways, jumping and other movement variations.
Suggested Materials
Tactile Treasures Kit, Tactile-Color Edition, available from APH, consists of tactile graphics of thermoformed real objects. This is another great tool for transitioning students from 3D objects to raised line drawings and tactile graphics.