Category: Daily Living
I was just thinking about this the other day.
Out of curiosity... How long, on average, does it take you to learn a route, by cane (with or without formal O&M instruction)... Does it take longer in some environments, like outdoor routes vs indoor routes.
Examples would be interesting too!
Hmmm. Interesting question. A lot depends on the traveller. I guess some of my initial thoughts involve the factors that make a route easy or difficult. As a cane traveller, the absence or presence of easily discernable landmarks. Using my ears, the presence or absence of discernable audible cues. Having said that, I think that indoor routes are potentially easier, because of the consistency of walls and doorways being in the same places. Outdoors can be a problem ifyou find landmarks changing. I learned a route with a tree as the landmark, only to find th next time I came to that location, the tree had been chopped down. Interested to see other posts on this.
Lou
That's an intersting little example there with the tree being cut down! Yikes.
Another good question -- How many times do you need to travel a route (with assistance) before you feel confident enough to travel it alone? For simple routes? Difficult routes? Indoor, outdoor, etc..
I know these are kind of hard to answer but i'ts thought provoking, hehe.
A route I learned recently is all on gravel country roads, after doing it three times with my boyfriend, I feel fairly confident about it (it's about a 12 - 15 minute walk I think).
It depends on the route. Though I try not to really do routes per say, for some of the reasons above, mainly that all sorts of things can happen if you just depend on a route. Rather, I try to understand where I am, and the street systems and the like to keep track of where I am and what I'm doing.
Agree with the last post. Routes are fine as far as they go, but knowledge of your surroundings is also crucial. That knowledge develops over time. I like to think of it as building this map that is a circle with your house or place of employment or college or other central point as the center of the circle, and your knowledge of streets roads, etc. as a continaully growing knowledge base. I also plan to get lost when learning a route. I want to know what happens if I pass a given landmark. I mean, we all have lapses in concentration or other distractions that might cause us to miss a landmark or turn or other important cue.
Lou
Of course, I do the same, but usually I start with a route in a given location, then expand on that via exploration, mistakes (purposeful or not) etc... Just was curious how long exemplory routes took to learn, not if people liked them or not, heh.
Hard to say. I guess it depends on the length and complexity of the route. On the average, I'd say two or three times for me. When I was younger and had better vision than I do now, it was much, much easier.
For me it cn ake up until a year to learn a route. Buthat depends how hard it is. I remember when I was training for my guide dog I worked on it all summer. Recently I have manaed to dothe route to thelocal shops and that only ook a few weeks. Nw I am waiting on my mobility instructer coming back she hasn'tbeen for 2 weeks. She only comes about once a fortnight an that's no enough for me.
A fairly easy route for me about two or three times but a harder route maybe six or seven times.