Orientation and mobility instruction and its association with performance of mobility activities for elementary age children

This study addressed the question of whether participation in orientation and mobility was associated with performance of mobility activities. The methods involved a secondary data analysis of the Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study dataset. Analyses were conducted to identify associations of key demographic variables with whether a student participated in orientation and mobility. Significant associations were found between receipt of orientation and mobility and blindness, visual impairment, ethnicity, and urbanicity. Correlational analyses were conducted to determine if participation in orientation and mobility training, or if the time when orientation instruction was received, was associated with performance of mobility activities. The independent variable, participation in orientation and mobility, was obtained from the parent survey, and the dependent variable of performance on 10 orientation and mobility related activities was obtained from the school program survey. For each of the orientation and mobility activities, student performance on a scale with three levels of performance (not well, pretty well, very well) was noted. Results suggested there was no association between the time orientation and mobility was received (i.e., during wave 1 or wave 3) with skill performance, but findings did reveal that not participating in orientation and mobility instruction was associated with higher performance on several outcome indicators. This is posited to be a reflection of students who are already performing so well that they are judged not to require orientation and mobility instruction.