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The Braille

Monitor

May, 2002

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A

New Professional Certification

by James H. Omvig

James

Omvig

From

the Editor: Jim Omvig is a frequent contributor to these pages. His leadership

in the National Federation of the Blind extends over decades, and his experience

in the blindness field is extensive. He has recently become President of the

National Blindness Professional Certification Board. In that capacity he describes

in the following pages the important work of this body and why it has come into

being. This is what he says:

A new entity, the National Blindness

Professional Certification Board, has been created to offer a certification

process for specialists in work with the blind. At present this board offers

one professional certification--the National Orientation and Mobility Certification,

which emphasizes nonvisual instruction, structured-discovery learning, and performance-based

certification. Other certifications will be developed in the future for teachers

of blind students, vocational rehabilitation counselors, and rehabilitation

or independent living teachers.

What is this new board all about?

What does it do and, for that matter, why was it established? What is nonvisual

instruction? What is structured-discovery learning, and what is performance-based

certification? Who are the people involved with this new board? These and similar

questions have been and will continue to be raised by those who are interested

in the organized blind movement and high-quality state or private services for

the blind: thus this article. Sadly, Monitor readers will find it necessary

to familiarize themselves with yet another set of jargony words and phrases.

By way of background, travel training

did not become a distinct profession until the mid-1940's. Prior to that time

home teachers had provided some rudimentary instruction as a part of their duties,

or a teacher at the school for the blind would have been assigned to pass on

travel tips to the upperclassmen. Ever since orientation and mobility instruction

developed into a full-time occupation, many uncertified professionals have been

outstanding in their specialty fields and have received their training from

agencies for the blind rather than university programs. They are what might

be called agency-trained, and many have been of enormous help to thousands of

blind people. In fact, my own travel teacher in the Iowa Commission for the

Blind's Orientation and Adjustment Center, a man named Jim Witte, was agency-trained.

He was as fine a travel teacher as there has ever been in America, and many

of today's leaders nationally in the blind community--people who are completely

independent and go where they want to go when they want to go there--were trained

by Witte.

Eventually university programs began

to be established and master's degrees were offered to prepare experts in work

with the blind, particularly travel teachers. What had been referred to by some

of the agencies as travel training became Orientation and Mobility (O&M)

in the university programs, and one university went so far as to refer to its

university-trained travel teachers as peripatologists. No one could argue with

either the purpose or lofty intent of this effort. Who among us would be opposed

to finding and training the best possible specialists to provide the training

blind people need in order to become empowered and prepared for normal, independent,

competitive, and successful life? After all, as many said, "We're all working

for the same thing, aren't we?"

Doubtless many outstanding blindness

specialists have come out of these university programs, and the blind have been

the fortunate beneficiaries of this excellence. In time, however, certain problems

also arose. Significant and damning myths and misconceptions came to the fore

and began to be confused with facts, particularly in the area of cane travel.

Some actually believed these fictions to be the fundamental truths underpinning

an entirely new science: fictions such as that agency-trained specialists cannot

possibly be as good or qualified as university-trained professionals and that

sight is a must to teach travel to the blind. Therefore, blind students will

not be admitted to the university O&M programs. When professional certification

in O&M came along, agency-trained teachers were simply not certified. Further,

blind travel teachers were not be certified to teach other blind people, even

if they received master's degrees from university O&M programs. In a word,

discrimination against the blind was both blatant and rampant in the field of

travel training.

This antiquated attitude about the

absolute necessity for travel teachers to have sight along with the concomitant

policy that the blind must, therefore, be barred forever from this rapidly developing

new profession has interesting roots. One would naturally assume of course that

this absolute had been sustained by scientific evidence and had been granted

some kind of validating sanction. Such, however, was not the case. It is reported

that, at a 1959 conference hosted by the American Foundation for the Blind,

this supposed legitimate and permanent prohibition against the blind was established

largely based upon an off-the-cuff response by a conference attendee to the

question, "What can a sighted mobility instructor do better than a blind

one at fifty paces from the trainee?" An instructor with thirty years of

experience replied, "The sighted instructor can see danger and say "Stop."

This statement is absolutely true.

Blind people cannot see. Based largely upon this impulsive remark, however,

professionals reached the conclusion that sight is needed to teach travel. This

fallacy took root among the supposed experts of the day and spread like wildfire.

The first organizational body in work

with the blind to offer professional certification for O&M instructors was

the American Association of Workers for the Blind. However, for many years now

(since 1984), this certification has been offered by the Association for Education

and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired (AER). Because of the

aforementioned myths and misconceptions, AER certification was not offered to

agency-trained specialists, and it was not offered to travel teachers who were

blind. In fact, most of the university O&M programs themselves were closed

to the blind. To be sure, these prohibitions have now been eliminated, at least

officially, with a gentle bit of persuasion from both the National Federation

of the Blind and the Americans with Disabilities Act, and some blind people

have been let into the schools and are being certified, but this traditional

training and certification continue to revolve around sight and visual techniques

for instruction and certification.

To jump ahead for a moment from the

chronology, AER certification has now been given over to a new entity, the Academy

for Certification of Vision Rehabilitation and Education Professionals (ACVREP)--the

Academy. It now performs the certification function previously handled directly

by AER.

With this brief summary of historical

facts, let's turn directly to a discussion of the National Blindness Professional

Certification Board (NBPCB). What is it, and how did it come about? For a complete

understanding one must first be aware of the historic facts summarized briefly

above. Second, one must also be aware that a new non-discriminatory O&M

master's program has been established at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston,

Louisiana. The project was made possible through a federal Experimental and

Innovative (E&I) Grant from the U.S. Department of Education to the Louisiana

Rehabilitation Services, that state's public VR agency.

This progressive state agency worked

in cooperation with the Louisiana Center for the Blind and Louisiana Tech University,

a member of the Louisiana university system. This historic partnership between

a public VR agency, a nationally recognized private agency for the blind, and

an institution of higher education pioneered the development of this new, non-discriminatory

master's program, which was to be an alternative to the traditional university

programs. Therefore at Louisiana Tech University all qualified students, whether

blind or sighted, are invited to apply and participate. In fact, under the E&I

Grant Louisiana Tech was specifically authorized to engage in targeted recruitment

of blind and minority students.

The first step in the Ruston effort

was to identify and clarify the actual, substantive differences in instructional

strategies used by blind and sighted instructors at the progressive orientation

and adjustment centers around the country and those used by graduates of the

university programs historically endorsed by AER. Intensive study revealed three

primary differences. The first is purely philosophical. Everything the progressive

centers do is based upon the fundamental conviction that blind people are simply

normal people who cannot see and that the average blind person can live a normal

life and compete on terms of absolute equality with people who are sighted if

given proper training and opportunity. The traditional university programs promote

the belief that blindness is a monumental loss or a tragedy and that the blind

can never expect to compensate fully or compete on terms of full equality with

the sighted, no matter what kind of training has been provided.

Second, the instructional strategies

used by the progressive centers rely upon a complete attitudinal adjustment

through immersion in blindness and nonvisual training techniques for instruction.

On the other hand the AER-supported university programs offer training which

revolves around sight, and there is little if any serious effort aimed at emotional,

attitudinal adjustment.

Third, there is also another and different

philosophical issue which is just as significant as the first. The progressive

adjustment centers and blindness agencies believe that the most successful and

useful O&M instructor, be he or she sighted or blind, must be proficient

in the very same skills and abilities being taught to students or clients. The

concept is analogous to the time-honored notion that a mathematics or English

teacher first know and be expert in math or English himself or herself before

being considered qualified to teach it to others. This level of expertise can

be gained only through complete immersion in blindness and extensive sleepshade

(blindfold) training.

While the AER-endorsed university

programs provide some minimal philosophical and sleepshade training (from fifty

to sixty-five total hours of instruction under blindfold), this concept of actual

ability to perform competently is not considered important enough to be required

to demonstrate excellence. Therefore, unlike the teacher trained in nonvisual

instruction, the typical AER-trained instructor would not be able to use his

or her personal travel skills to serve as a positive and inspiring role model

for students or customers.

As the Louisiana Center/Louisiana

Tech programs progressed, certain terminology emerged and crystallized. The

nonvisual kind of training offered at the Louisiana Center for the Blind is

known as the structured-discovery method of instruction, while traditional AER

teaching is called guided learning. Under the structured-discovery method, the

new student begins by being given specific instructions, but this phase of the

learning continues only as long as it takes the student to master the simple,

proper techniques--cane grip, arc, staying in step, and the like--but then the

instruction shifts to "problem-solving after receiving general instructions."

The instructor provides only the bare minimum of information; then it is up

to the student to gather and process needed information, explore the environment,

and rely upon himself or herself to discover the information needed to move

about safely, efficiently and freely. Students learn to think and plan and to

process their own information. Before long students are going out on solo routes.

Experience has shown that students learn better and retain more if they figure

it out for themselves. Student monitoring is done non-visually.

On the other hand, the traditional

training, commonly called route or point-to-point travel, is referred to as

guided learning. The instructor continually provides very specific instructions

and feedback while closely monitoring the student. Guided learning revolves

around sight and sighted instructors and visual monitoring.

The alternative, structured-discovery

method is based upon the concept of teaching the same nonvisual techniques to

teachers of the blind that are used for mobility by the blind themselves. Clearly

it is a superior method of teaching independent travel. Actually, however, it

is not a new teaching method at all--having been used for years by agency-trained

instructors--but it is new to the university scene and master's programs.

Therefore the Louisiana Center/Louisiana

Tech master's program became totally committed to and revolves around nonvisual,

structured-discovery teaching, and the outcome has been gratifying. Then one

additional but significant fact comes into play. As a second part of the U.S.

Department of Education's E&I grant, a new, non-discriminatory alternative

certification process for O&M instructors was to be developed. This alternative

was needed for several reasons: First, a growing number of states require the

certification of specialists in the blindness field, and quality certification

is needed. Second, historically AER certification had been closed to blind candidates.

True, recently the prohibition against the blind has officially been lifted,

but blind candidates seeking certification are still expected to teach others

using visual techniques. Finally, there are the many agency-trained O&M

specialists around the country, who, while they do not have master's degrees

from university programs, are outstanding O&M instructors, deserving certification

and professional recognition and qualification.

Thus the National Orientation and

Mobility Certification (NOMC) was developed. By way of comparison, the AER/Academy

system certifies candidates based upon having received a university O&M

master's degree from an AER-approved program and passing a multiple-choice test.

Generally, those receiving such master's degrees and taking this multiple-choice

test cannot perform expertly the very tasks and techniques which they are expected

to teach to their blind students or clients. In contrast, the new performance-based

procedures for qualification for certification require that, in addition to

demonstrating (through rigorous testing) a knowledge of the blindness field

and positive attitudes about blindness, to become certified to teach the blind,

the candidate must also be able to demonstrate his or her ability to perform

the tasks or techniques which will be taught to blind students or clients. Thus

it is performance-based. If the candidate for NOMC certification is sighted

or partially blind, then the performance part of the examination is conducted

under sleepshades and tests competence performing both indoor and outdoor travel.

A number of outstanding professionals

in work with the blind wrote, re-wrote, tried, and tested for more than four

years developing the original NOMC documents for the certification of individuals

to prepare them for public use and acceptance. Key among these were Mrs. Joanne

Wilson, then director of the Louisiana Center for the Blind and current Commissioner

of the Federal Rehabilitation Services Administration; Dr. Ruby Ryles, Coordinator

of Professional Development, Professional Development and Research Institute

on Blindness, Louisiana Tech University; Ms. Suzanne Mitchell, Blind Services

Executive Director, Louisiana Rehabilitation Services, and past president of

the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind; Mr. Roland Allen, NOMC,

Louisiana Tech O&M Program Instructor; Mr. Edward Bell, NOMC, O&M master's

degree graduate from Louisiana Tech; reviewer comments from Dr. Fredric K. Schroeder, NOMC, former Commissioner

of the Rehabilitation Services Administration; and, toward the completion of

the project, Dr. Ronald J. Ferguson, COMS, Senior Research Fellow, Professional

Development and Research Institute on Blindness, Louisiana Tech University.

Drs. Ryles and Ferguson have jointly developed a second package--the NBPCB'S

certification process for approved university programs.

Once the NOMC process was tried, tested,

proven, and in place, it was determined that an entire new national body made

up of professionals possessing diverse backgrounds and experience and with broad

representation from around the country should be created to handle and oversee

not only NOMC certifications but also many others which are urgently needed

in the blindness field. Thus the National Blindness Professional Certification

Board, Inc., (NBPCB) was created. This new agency was incorporated under the

laws of Maryland on June 15, 2001.

Those currently on the NBPCB Board

of Directors are President, Mr. James H. Omvig, Ruston, Louisiana, blind attorney

and former director of rehabilitation centers in both Iowa and Alaska, former

director of a Social Security program to create greater employment opportunity

among the blind and disabled within SSA itself, and author on issues concerning

blindness; Vice President, Dr. C. Edwin Vaughan, Atherton, California, Professor

at the University of Missouri and Menlo College, and author of numerous books

in the blindness field; Secretary/Treasurer, Dr. Ronald J. Ferguson, Ruston,

Louisiana, Senior Research Fellow, Professional Development and Research Institute

on Blindness, Louisiana Tech University, researcher and author on issues concerning

blindness, and Academy-certified mobility instructor; Mr. James R. Gashel, Baltimore,

Maryland, Director of Governmental Affairs, National Federation of the Blind,

and former orientation center director, Iowa Commission for the Blind; Jamie

C. Hilton, Newark, New Jersey, Director, New Jersey Commission for the Blind

and Visually Impaired and former President, National Council of State Agencies

for the Blind; and Dr. Fredric K. Schroeder, NOMC, Vienna, Virginia, master's

degreed O&M instructor, former director of special education programs for

the Albuquerque, New Mexico, schools, former Director, New Mexico Commission

for the Blind, former Commissioner, Federal Rehabilitation Services Administration,

currently Research Professor at San Diego State University, and Director of

the Professional Development and Research Institute on Blindness, Louisiana

Tech University.

Twelve individuals presently serve

on the NOMC Certification Committee, and Dr. Ron Ferguson is Committee Chairman.

Three-member certification teams conduct individual examinations. As indicated

at the beginning of this article, other certifications for blindness professionals

will be developed eventually, and additional certification committees will be

established as needed. Dr. Ferguson may be contacted for information by phone

at (318) 251-2891 or by e-mail at <[email protected]>.

This is a new day in work with the

blind. The age of enlightenment has come to this field, and we of the National

Blindness Professional Certification Board are gratified and honored to be a

part of the revolution. By working together in a real spirit of partnership,

the organized blind and professionals serving the blind will be unstoppable.

The devastating unemployment rate among blind people of working age can steadily

be reduced to the point where blind people who want to work can secure and hold

the jobs they want and for which they are suited and qualified. Through proper

training large numbers of blind people can be empowered, and that empowerment

will be their passport to freedom.

Arthur

Voorhees, "Professional Trends in Mobility Training," Standards

for Mobility Instructors (New York: American Foundation for the Blind, 1962):

18.

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