8 Choosing environmental complexity in VROOM and OMO assessments

Orientation and Mobility (O&M) textbooks talk about indoor and outdoor travel skills. Outdoor places are usually classified according to their purpose or zoning – residential, semi-business and business environments, petrol stations and shopping centres. However, environmental purpose doesn’t necessarily tell us about complexity. It can be easier to cross at the traffic lights in the city than an uncontrolled residential road. The O&M Environmental Complexity Scale provides a way to think about the aspects of complexity that matter to clients. We can use it to rough-sort any environment in the world into one of six levels without getting bogged down in the details. Podcast pals, Jo Anson-Smith, Amy McKibbins, Tayler McBrien and Zoe Gephart join me again to talk about choosing environments for VROOM and OMO assessments using the O&M Environmental Complexity Scale.