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The Safety City Program for Students Who Are Blind and Visually Impaired was developed jointly by Educational Vision Services, New York City Department of Education, District 75 and the New York City Department of Transportation, Safety Education Program.
This program includes the Safety City instructional content areas adapted to address the needs of children and youth who are blind and visually impaired. Instructional activities that can be carried out at Safety City facilities and by vision education and orientation and mobility teachers are included for each of the instructional content areas.
Tips for teaching students who are blind and visually impaired, a glossary of orientation and mobility terms, and an overview of how students who are blind and visually impaired cross the street are included for use by the Safety City program.
Instructional Content Areas
• The Safety Tool Box
• Signs and Signals
• City Sounds
• Drivers and Vehicles
• Crossing the Street
• Safety with Strangers
• The Vocabulary of Pedestrian Safety
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|The Safety Tool Box |
|Instructional Content |
The Safety Tool Box contains the tools that students who are blind and visually impaired use to help them make correct decisions for crossing the street. Students learn to use their own safety tools, and identify and use the tools that are in their environment. The tools in the Safety Tool Box are:
Personal Tools – Tools That Are Part of the Body
• Eyes (for children with low vision)
• Ears
• Hands
• Feet
• Brains
Tools That We Wear and Use
• Bright or light colored clothing
• Long canes
• Monocular telescopes
• Family and friends
• Other pedestrians
Tools in the Environment
• Tactile warnings at corners
• Crosswalks
• Traffic and pedestrian signals
• Traffic signs
• Crosswalks
• Roadway markings
|Instructional Activities |
Students are asked to identify the tools they have to help them make safe decisions. Then, they are asked to explain how they use these tools to help keep them safe. The Safety City and Vision Education co-teachers can engage their students in creative problem solving by describing outdoor travel situations, and encouraging students to come up with the tools they would use from the Safety Tool Box to deal safely with these situations.
Outdoor travel situations the students can be asked to respond to include:
• crossing the street on a rainy windy day
• walking home from school when a water pipe bursts and floods the streets
• crossing streets in a very crowded neighborhood
• gridlocked streets
• the traffic light two blocks away from school is broken
• a car runs the light just after you start to cross the street
• a delivery truck blocks the crosswalk
• kids from school tease you for waiting for the pedestrian signal
• there is a big "pot hole" in the street
• you suddenly realize that you can't figure out where you are
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|Signs and Signals |
|Instructional Content |
Signs and signals are used to send messages that people use everyday to make decisions about their health and safety. People use signs and signals not only in the traffic environment, but they are common in daily social interactions. Students who are blind and visually impaired may not be aware of many of the signs and signals that people use. They may have difficulty fully understanding them without special instruction that introduces these signs and signals, and provides direct experiences with them. Brainstorming will help students become more aware of and sensitive to the presence of the many signs and signals people use, learn that signs and signals are important, and recognize we are called upon to interpret signs and signals everyday.
|Instructional Activities |
The Safety City and Vision Education co-teachers ask students to say which signs and signals let them know that:
• A friend is going outdoors
• Someone is in a bad mood
• Someone is proud
• Someone is happy
• A team is winning a game
Once students come up with the signs and symbols for this activity, students are asked to explore how these signs and signals help them understand what is happening. For example, do these signs and signals warn of something? Provide encouragement? help with making decisions, give information? Guide the students to come to the conclusion that signs and signals give us information that helps us make good decisions about what is going on around us. Ask students to name specific signs and symbols that:
• warn of possible danger
• let you know things are OK
• give you information about what to do
Then, present the traffic signs and signals one by one. Allow the students to examine the real-sized traffic signs and signals up close. The signs can be presented one by one. As the students recognize each sign, ask the students to name the sign and tell their classmates what the sign is for. Ask the students to talk about where they have found the signs they are examining, and how they used these signs when they were on an orientation and mobility lesson, a class field trip, or when they were out in the community with their families. Encourage students to tell their classmates how these signs gave them information that helped them make decisions.
Students with low vision can use their vision to examine the signs and signals at Safety City, and students who are totally blind can explore these signs and signals tactually. The Safety City and Vision Education Co-teachers can help students use their vision and sense of touch to examine the signs and signals effectively. For example, at Safety City students can be given a chance to explore a traffic light signal up close. Students with low vision can watch the traffic lights and pedestrian signals change, and be asked to comment about the color lights they see.
Students who are totally blind can tactually explore the traffic light and “ped head” structure, and then feel the warmth of the traffic signal and “ped head” as these lights change. Tape recordings of traffic surges, turning traffic, and stopping traffic can be used to illustrate how traffic signals work.
Students with low vision can call out the color light they see, teachers can play pre-recorded sounds to go along with the signal that is lit, and students can be asked to say whether they can cross the street safely.
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|City Sounds |
|Instructional Content |
Everyday hundreds of sounds alert us to what is going on around us and to potential danger. Opening our senses to the environment helps us be safer. As part of the Safety City experience students who are blind or visually impaired learn that everyone uses the sounds of the city for information and for safety – and that this is something they have in common with everyone who travels the city's streets, buses, and subways.
|Instructional Activities |
The Safety City City-Sounds cassette tape is a way to heighten students' awareness of the traffic environment. Safety City and Vision Education Co-teachers can play the City-Sounds Listening Game to help students recognize the sounds of the city and understand their importance.
• City Sounds Tape – Part I. Students listen to and are asked to identify individual sounds such as a bicycle bell, police and fire sirens, truck and car horns, the click of a safety, children's voices, a bus pulling away, and a jack hammer. Students can be encouraged to tell when they expect to hear these sounds. Then they can be asked to explain how these sounds let them know what is going on around them when they are outdoors traveling with others and when they are traveling independently. They can also be asked to say which sounds alert them to danger.
• City Sound Tape – Parts II and III. Students listen to overlapping sounds from the City Sounds Tape Part I, and to sound sentences created by the sounds on the tape. Students can be encouraged to tell a story the sounds suggest to them. Then, ask students to identify as many sounds as possible from the tapes, and explain the importance of each in terms of their safety and the decisions they would make as blind or visually impaired travelers
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|What Drivers and Vehicles Do – And Don’t Do |
|Instructional Content |
According to many experts children are at high risk when they travel on our city streets, regardless of whether they are blind or visually impaired, or fully sighted. This is because young children have not yet developed a realistic sense of the traffic environment. When children who are blind and visually impaired learn the orientation and mobility skills to travel in their community, just as their sighted peers, they must learn what drivers and vehicles do – and don't do so they can make good decisions. Children must learn that:
• cars are not "friendly"
• drivers cannot always see pedestrians in the street
• drivers do not always give pedestrians the "right of way"
• drivers do not always see the white cane, or obey the White Cane Law
• drivers cannot stop vehicles instantly
• it is not always possible to hear oncoming traffic
• drivers do not always obey traffic signals and rules
|Instructional Activities |
The Safety City and Vision Education Co-teachers talk to students about what drivers do and do not do when they are behind the wheel of their cars, trucks, or buses. Students can then play a "True/False" game about how drivers act on the road. Some "True/False" questions can be:
• drivers are very careful about looking for your white cane
• when drivers are looking for a parking spot, they don't really pay close attention to pedestrians
• because SUVs, buses, and trucks are bigger, it is easy for their drivers to see you when you cross the street
• when a driver is speeding and sees your white cane, he or she can stop right away so you will be safe
• drivers want to take good care of children who cross the street
• it is easy to tell when a car is speeding and get out of the way
• it is always possible to hear when cars are coming
• drivers who speed or don't stop at a red light can get a ticket
• there are police at busy street crossings
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|Crossing the Street – Use Your Cane, Look Out, Listen Up! |
|Instructional Content |
Motor vehicle crashes are the number one cause of preventable death to New York City children between the ages of 5-14. Children, particularly boys in this age group, are also at high risk of pedestrian injury. About 3,000 city children are injured in motor vehicle-related crashes each year. Many of the injuries are due to children darting out into the roadway from between parked cars.
Many children who are blind and visually impaired are not allowed to cross the street on their own until they have shown that they can do so correctly during their orientation and mobility lessons. However, some children who have low vision can and do travel on their own in their communities without special instruction in orientation and mobility. In addition, parents often ask siblings, relatives, or friends to accompany children who are blind and visually impaired when they go outside to play or to do family errands. Therefore, whether children who are blind and visually impaired travel on their own or they are accompanied by their peers, siblings, or adults they need accurate information about safe ways for sighted people to cross streets.
Children with visual impairments who travel with others need to be able to tell if the people they are with are making good decisions and safe choices. The Safety City Program for Students Who Are Blind and Visually Impaired stresses the importance of knowing about the safe choices that sighted pedestrians make, developing the skills and confidence to behave safely, and being able to convince those they are with to behave in a safer manner.
The aim of the Safety City program is to help children internalize the knowledge and skills necessary to be comfortable making safer choices, even when other around them do not. Below is the information about pedestrian crossing safety skills that students who are blind and visually impaired should know.
Safety Skills on the Sidewalk
• stop at the curb with both feet on the sidewalk
• look for the pedestrian signal or other traffic signs and signals, listen for cars
• look for the crosswalk
• stay on the sidewalk until the correct time to cross
• plan to cross when no vehicles are coming, or when the pedestrian signal changes
• look left, right, and left, or listen, to get ready to cross
• if a vehicle is coming, wait until it passes, and repeat the sequence
Safety Skills in the Street
• scan for traffic while crossing by looking left, right, and left
• begin to cross the street as soon the conditions for crossing correctly are met
• pay attention to crossing by not talking to friends before crossing and in the street
• walk between the cross walk lines
• walk at a steady sure pace, do not run to complete a crossing
• keep looking and listening during a crossing
• use a mobility cane to signal drivers that a person with a visual impairment is crossing the street
|Instructional Activities |
The Safety City and Vision Education co-teachers conduct role playing activities that ask students to work though safety dilemmas. Students will learn the tools of role playing for this activity. These tools include:
• Assertions – things students can say or do to protect their rights to be safer
• Intervention – things students can say or do to help another person make a safer choice
Assertion and intervention strategies include:
• applying information
• showing care and concern
• setting an example
Sample Role Playing Activity
Safety Dilemma: You are walking home from school with your brother and his friends. Your brother is in the 6th grade, you are in the 4th grade. One block past the school crossing guard, your brother and his friends walk right into the street at a busy intersection without waiting for the Walk signal. Your brother pulls you by the cane and tells you to hurry up so he can walk with his friends.
Teacher: What could you do you say to be safer?
Student: I could tell my brother he is doing something dangerous, and I want to wait for the Walk light to cross (assertion: setting an example). I could tell him that we are crossing against the light and that if he crosses now we can get hit by a car that has a green light (assertion: applying knowledge).
Teacher: What would you say to help your brother be safer?
Student: I could tell my brother that that we should not cross now or we might both get hurt (intervention: applying knowledge). I could also tell him that I care about his safety and don't want him to get hurt (intervention: showing you care).
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|Safety with Strangers |
|Instructional Content |
Safety with strangers in the community is a major concern for students who are blind and visually impaired. Reasonable concerns have to do with whether or not students have the skills and confidence to ask correctly for assistance when it is needed, decline assistance from pedestrians who approach and offer help when it is not needed, or who help in inappropriate ways. Equally important are concerns that students who are blind and visually impaired will be able to recognize public servants, such as police and fire personnel and school crossing guards, and be able to determine that they are bona fide.
|Instructional Activities |
The Safety City and Vision Education co-teachers distribute police and fire badges for students to examine. Safety City and Vision Education co-teachers then describe these badges in detail, while they guide students to explore the badges visually and tactually. Teachers should direct student’s attention to:
• badge size, shape, color, and weight
• the material the badge is made of
Teachers also describe police and firefighters uniforms; explain how police and fire personnel wear their badges, how they show their badges to others, and use a radio to communicate. Teachers then play a “True-False” game with students.
Some suggested True/False questions are:
• a policeman or woman is usually too busy to help a student cross the street
• policemen or woman don’t always have a uniform
• you can ask a policeman or woman to show you a badge
• you can use a cell phone to ask for police help when you need help
• you can ask the policeman to use his or her radio to call for help
Teachers conduct role playing activities that ask students to work though safety dilemmas that involve strangers. Students can be encouraged to provide the scenarios for this role play based on their experiences, stories they have heard, or worries their family has talked about at home. Students will use the tools of role playing they learned during earlier Safety City activities.
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|The Vocabulary of Pedestrian Safety |
|Instructional Content |
Throughout the Safety City experience, students will be exposed to the special vocabulary and concepts related traffic safety. Children who are blind and visually impaired may have heard these vocabulary words before, or they may be learning them for the first time. Regardless, it is important to stop and identify each of the traffic safety words that come up, and be sure that students repeat these words and can provide specific examples of how these words are related to safety and good decisions. Here are some of the vocabulary words students can be expected to learn and use during their Safety City experience:
• alert
• badge
• corner
• crosswalk
• curb ramp
• emergency
• idling car
• intersection
• pedestrian
• pedestrian signal
• safety
• safety tools
• tool
• traffic
• traffic light
• uniform
• vehicle
Appendix
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|Tips for Teaching Students who are Blind and Visually Impaired |
Send written instructional materials to classroom or vision teachers in advance of Safety City programs so the materials can be brailled, adapted, or prepared in large print.
Hand out name tags with one corner cut so students can orient their name tags correctly and put them on by themselves.
Explain in advance about upcoming educational experiences. E.g., if a video will be used, tell the students in advance about why they are seeing the video and the information it contains. If prizes will be distributed, tell the students in advance about the prizes and how they are awarded.
Provide multisensory instructional experiences, i.e. provide opportunities for students to see, listen to, touch, and experience what is being taught
Use descriptive language, i.e. provide clear and illustrative descriptions when presenting information. E.g., when teaching students about the term gridlock tell students that cars, buses, and trucks are all crowded together at the intersection so traffic cannot move in any direction. When there is gridlock you can hear engines roaring and idling, and horns honking every place you look and listen.
Provide functional descriptions, i.e., descriptions that refer to how elements and concepts are used. E.g., a crosswalk is the special place pedestrians walk when they cross the street. Many crosswalks are painted with white lines.
Ask children to provide concrete examples and use safety terms in a correct sentence. Don’t assume children understand the meaning of words they use or that you use.
Refer to children, instructors, and others who participate in a Safety City session by name each and every time you address them.
Pair visual gestures such as pointing or nodding with verbal explanations. E.g., “hey… I’ve got my hand up, give me high 5.”
Be specific when referring to positions and locations. Avoid using terms such as "over there." E.g., “Let’s all go to the back of the room where Maria is talking.”
Use the Human Guide technique to move about with students who do not have functional travel vision.
Read aloud everything that is written on a chalk or dry erase board as it is written
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|Glossary of Mobility Terms for Travelers who are Blind and Visually Impaired |
Orientation and Mobility (O&M). The body of skills and techniques used by people who are blind and visually impaired to systematically establish and maintain their orientation to the environment and move about safety, independently, and with purpose. These techniques include the:
• human guide technique (see below)
• direction taking techniques (see below)
• trailing techniques
• long cane techniques
• systematic use of sensory information, including hearing, touch, and available vision
• use of low vision aids such as monocular telescopes, or electronic travel aids, such as sonic sensors
O&M Instruction. Specialized instruction designed for individuals who are blind or visually impaired to enable them to move safely and with purpose. Fundamental is teaching the use of information received by the senses (such as sound, temperature, and vibrations) spatial, and environmental awareness to establish, maintain, and regain orientation and line of travel (e.g. using sound at a traffic light to cross the street); teaching the use of the long cane as a tool for safely negotiating the environment in the absence of available travel vision, or to supplement visual travel skills; and teaching the use of remaining vision and distance low vision aids, and other techniques and tools for safe and purposeful travel (derived from the definition of orientation and mobility instruction in the regulations to the 1997 IDEA amendments).
Total blindness. The absence of any sight.
Legal blindness. A definition of vision impairment that is used specifically by the vocational rehabilitation system to determine eligibility for specialized rehabilitation services for visual impairment. Legal blindness in this context is a vision impairment with a best corrected visual acuity of 20/200 or poorer in the better eye after best correction, or a visual field of less than 20 degrees.
Visual impairment, low vision. These are non-clinical terms that refer to poor vision that cannot be corrected by ordinary lenses, medications, or surgery. People who are visually impaired or who have low vision may not be legally blind.
Functional vision. This term refers to the sight that a person with a visual impairment can use to perform daily activities such as reading, writing, personal management, household chores, etc.
Travel vision. This term refers to the sight that a person with a visual impairment can use to perform daily activities such as establishing and keeping a straight line of travel, using a traffic light, seeing steps and curbs, reading street signs, etc.
Parallel traffic. This is a "term of art" used in orientation and mobility to refer to traffic that flows in a direction that is parallel to a pedestrian's path of travel. Travelers who are blind and visually impaired learn to use parallel traffic to establish and maintain a straight line of travel when they walk along a sidewalk, cross the street, or walk past breaks in building lines at places such as gas stations and parking lots. The onset of parallel traffic at traffic light controlled intersection is one of the important cues travelers who are blind use to initiate a street crossing. Travelers who are totally blind use the auditory information provided by parallel traffic. Travelers with low vision combine visual and auditory strategies to use parallel traffic.
Perpendicular traffic. This is a "term of art" used in orientation and mobility to refer to traffic that flows in a direction that is perpendicular to a pedestrian's path of travel. Travelers who are blind and visually impaired learn to use perpendicular traffic to anticipate upcoming corners. Together with parallel traffic, the sounds of perpendicular traffic help travelers who are totally blind establish a straight line of travel when they prepare to cross the street. Travelers who are totally blind use the auditory information provided by perpendicular traffic. Travelers with low vision combine visual and auditory strategies to use perpendicular traffic.
Crown of the road. The crown of the road is the slightly raised midline of the road that runs the length of the roadway provided to facilitate drainage. Travelers who are totally blind use the crown of the roadway to confirm their straight path of travel across the street, or to make corrections if they walk across the street at an angle, or veer (see below).
Human guide technique. An orientation and mobility techniques that makes use of another person as a tool for mobility. The visually impaired traveler uses the guide as a travel tool by firmly grasping the guide's arm just above the elbow, and traveling alongside and behind the guide. The human guide technique, also referred to as the sighted guide technique, is basic to travel by people with visual impairments regardless of whether they use a long cane, a guide dog, or their travel vision.
Long cane. A travel tool used by people who are blind or visually impaired to probe the environment and serve as a shield or a bumper. The long cane has a straight shaft, a grip, a tip, and sometimes a crook. It is individually fitted to probe the environment and provide protective coverage diagonally across the front of the body. The long cane serves three purposes: it protects the traveler from obstacles below waist height, it provides advance information about the nature of the terrain underfoot, and identifies a person as being blind or visually impaired.
Dog guide. A dog guide is a specially trained service animal for blind travelers. The dog guide and the blind traveler work as a team. Dog guides are trained to respond to their master's voice and hand commands – forward, right, left, halt, no, good boy/girl. Travelers who use dog guides are required to demonstrate solid orientation and mobility skills. School age students typically do not receive dog guide training until their senior year of high school.
Direction taking techniques. This is a "term of art" in orientation and mobility that refers to the techniques travelers who are totally blind use to face straight ahead in the direction they wish to travel. When travelers use direction taking techniques they position their body, or parts of the body, parallel or perpendicular to an environmental feature to establish their direction. Direction taking techniques include squaring off, which is positioning the body perpendicularly to an environmental feature, and aligning, which is positioning the body parallel to an environmental feature. Travelers can use physical environmental features, such as the straight edge of a bench, or sounds in the environment, such as parallel or perpendicular traffic to take a direction
Sound localization. Locating the source of a sound. Travelers who are blind and severely visually impaired use sound localization for direction taking.
Veering. Walking at an angle away from the intended path of travel. Learning to recognize, control, and correct veer is an essential skill for travelers who are totally blind.
Guidelines, Shorelines. These are "terms of art" in orientation and mobility that refer to surfaces, such as walls, or lines of demarcation, such as grasslines, that travelers follow to maintain a line of travel or find an intended objective.
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|How Students With Visual Impairments Cross the Street |
Students who are totally blind
Students use parallel traffic, distant perpendicular traffic, and guidelines in the environment to travel a straight path along the sidewalk to the corner using their long cane.
Students use the sounds of nearing perpendicular traffic, turning traffic, and changes in air currents an ambient sound to anticipate an upcoming corner.
Students use their cane to detect the corner by feeling the drop-off at the curb, or to identify the detectable warning surface with their cane and feet. At intersections with curb ramps and without detectable warnings, students use motor kinesthetic perception and their long cane to detect the change in slope at the top of the curb ramp, at the cross slope, and at the bottom of the ramp. This can be difficult to perceive.
Students use the sounds of parallel and perpendicular traffic to establish the correct "heading direction" to cross the street. They check that their body is correctly aligned so that their entire body faces squarely across the street.
Students remain still to preserve their heading direction and body alignment while they listen for the correct crossing cue. This cue can be the onset of parallel traffic at a traffic light, “all quiet” at an intersection in a residential community with or without stop signs, or a steady flow of parallel traffic at an intersection without traffic lights or stop signs. Students learn to identify correct crossing cues during their orientation and mobility lessons.
Students begin crossing the street as soon as they identify the correct crossing cue
Students use parallel and perpendicular traffic as well as the crown of the road to maintain a straight path of travel across the street.
Students use motor kinesthetic perception and the long cane to detect the “up curb” or the curb ramp going at the end of their crossing.
Students use the long cane to “sweep or clear” the sidewalk. They step up and continue traveling.
Students with low vision
Students with low vision use a combination of visual, tactile, and auditory techniques to cross the street. The techniques they use are highly dependent on the nature of their travel vision, lighting, and other environmental conditions.
Some students with low vision use a long cane to supplement their vision, some students use monocular telescopes to see the pedestrian signal, some students use protective eyewear or light filters for glare, while some students with low vision are able to use their available vision in a strategic and systematic manner to cross the street.
Students with low vision learn to identify correct crossing cues during their orientation and mobility lessons.
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