• What is orientation and what is mobility?
• How does Developmental Orientation and Mobility help with orientation?
• How does Developmental Orientation and Mobility help with mobility?
• Who needs Developmental Orientation and Mobility?
• Why is Developmental Orientation and Mobility so important?
• How does it work?
• Contact us

What is orientation and what is mobility?

Orientation is the understanding and problem solving part of moving around the environment.
Mobility is purposeful movement for a desired outcome.

Developmental Orientation and Mobility (DOM)teaches blind and vision-impaired children about purposeful movement and an understanding of the environment in an age- and developmentally-appropriate manner.

How does Developmental Orientation and Mobility help with orientation?

Blind and vision-impaired children learn:

• How to use sensory systems to interact with the world
• About their body, its boundaries and how they relate to other people and objects in the environment
• About the world around them, including objects and people, and how these objects and people relate to each other
• How to use this understanding to problem solve and interact within the world while moving through it.

How does Developmental Orientation and Mobility help with mobility?

Blind and vision-impaired children learn:

• How to develop voluntary movement
• How to develop organised movement for a desired outcome
• How to refine this movement
• To increase movement complexity and to use equipment to aid movement.

Who needs Developmental Orientation and Mobility?

One or more of the following symptoms may indicate that a blind or vision-impaired child could benefit from an individualised Developmental Orientation and Mobility programme:

• A lack of desire to move.
• Walking in a unique way that compensates for low vision and postural patterns.
• Difficulties in understanding body, spatial and environmental concepts.
• Low physical fitness.
• Bumping into things.
• Clumsiness.
• Tiring easily.
• Frequent involvement in solitary activities.
• Difficulties in understanding measurement, distance and space.

Why is Developmental Orientation and Mobility so important?

DOM is important because it can enhance school subjects such as social studies and maths as well as health and fitness. It can also increase independence, self-esteem and the potential to access jobs and leisure activities of choice.

How does it work?

Children who are blind, deafblind or vision-impaired should be entitled to a Developmental Orientation and Mobility assessment. This needs to be indicated on the child's individual education plan (IEP).

Parents can ask for a Developmental Orientation and Mobility assessment to be completed by a qualified Developmental Orientation and Mobility instructor. The instructor completes an assessment and makes recommendations to the team and a specific programme plan is devised to meet the child's needs.

To be successful, the programme needs to be coordinated with other disciplines and requires the co-operation of the whole team. Therefore Developmental Orientation and Mobility instructors need to work closely with parents and family, resource teachers vision, teachers and teacher aides, early support workers and other key team members.

Contact us

For more information about Developmental Orientation and Mobility contact: Jane Spiers (Practice Advisor) on phone 03 375 4323 or Kate Kerr (Children's Services Manager) on phone 06 835 3777.

There are several trained Developmental Orientation and Mobility Instructors in NZ. They can be contacted by phoning 0800 24 33 33 and asking for your closest DOM instructor or email: DOM

Developmental Adaptive Daily Living is another service available to RNZFB members under the age of 21.