Description of graphical content is included between Description Start and Description End. Transcript Start [ Music ] [ Title: ] International O&M Online Symposium Welcome (in multiple languages0 [ Title: ] The Benefits of the Dakota Disk Cane Tip with Special Populations Paul Olson: I'm looking forward to sharing my thoughts and experiences, but I am really hoping that all of you will contribute as well, both your knowledge and experience. Whether you had direct experience with the Dakota Disk Cane Tip or not, I'm looking at this as kind of a crowdsourcing opportunity. I am learning myself what its capabilities and limitations are, and of course I am a little biased in that I am hoping to promote its use or at least awareness of it, so that you'll know it's a tool that you can add to your professional tool chest. I look at this as kind of a show and tell opportunity. You all remember show and tell when you were kids. It's kind of fun to share and get feedback from others, and we will have a few polls to conduct throughout the presentation so it's interactive. Very interested in your feedback. I do want to mention that the technicians at the Texas school will be taking care of advancing from page to page in the presentation. I appreciate that, because that reduces the likelihood of any human error on my part. Some days I get along with technology and other days, not so much. And before we continue, I will ask, can everyone hear me okay? I am using a telephone microphone to present my audio. I'd like a little indication that everyone is okay. Thank you. Also, you're just going to get a still picture of me, largely because I think it might be distracting to see myself otherwise, and except perhaps for a very short demonstration, I'll unfreeze or show you some live video of me showing how the Dakota Disk is easily attached to the cane or taken off as needed, but that's all right. I do want to say that, again, I'm hoping to leave you with more information to add to your professional tool chest, and what I'm hoping that you will do is keep in mind that this is just another tool that you have at your disposal. Something that just today occurred to me was a reference in our ACV code of ethics, I didn't recall the exact wording so I looked it up. I want to begin from reading that excerpt from the code of ethics, and it comes from the section, the first section, the commitment to the learner and it reads: The O&M specialist will provide information regarding the various types of O&M devices and strategies and will explore with the learner which devices and strategies will best meet the specific assessed needs of the learner. The O&M specialist will not dispense or supply O&M equipment unless it is in the best interest of the learner. Of course, that second component is somewhat subjective; however, because it would be based on our professional experience and how thorough we are, et cetera, and our own awareness of all of the options available to a particular learner. But I think the first part really is very easily understood in that we have an obligation to both learn about all the options, whether it be devices and strategies that are available, but the second part of it, to the best of our ability to help our learners be aware and make informed choices themselves. So that was something I just considered today adding to this, and I hope you would agree. The code of ethics is not something I look at regularly, but I do reference it on occasion for some guidance. So, the one other thing I want to say before we jump this is that in the title of the presentation, I'm wanting to espouse what I think are the benefits of this particular cane tip, and I say with special populations. I want to say I mean that in the most respectful way. I think every learner is unique, and ‑‑ but I do think we recognize that there are individuals who have additional challenges, whether it be because of, you know, for young children, however you might define that. Their attention and cognition may be limited and obviously their motor control may be limited because of their age, but then in another sense, as we look at learners of all ages, certainly we recognize that alternative mobility devices might be the best tool for an individual, and I love alternative mobility devices. I would ‑‑ when that became popular I just immersed myself and made a number of different alternative mobility devices and felt that in each case I was trying to customize the particular learner, but what I think is also real evident is that we need transition tools, and so that's one of the things I'd like to address today. Okay. Moving on to the next page. I will just say briefly who I am. It's nice in our field that we do get to know each other. We're relatively small. Quite small. And some people have more name recognition than others, and although I've been seemingly doing this for ever, I did think I would share just a little bit about myself given the fact that I have not done a lot of presenting at regional or larger conferences. I have been an orientation and mobility instructor for over 25 years. I'm a North Dakota native, but after being introduced to the field, I attended the University of Northern Colorado, it was a dual TVI/O&M program, and absolutely loved the program and knew that I had made the right choice. Returned to North Dakota and began my career, and I will just say that we're a very small agency, North Dakota vision services. It's very unusual. We're one of the few agencies that is equally responsible for serving children and adults within our state and we had been a traditional residential school up through about 1994, but there after, the emphasis was on outreach, and with adult training center being eliminated at that point in time, for economic reasons, we were tasked with that responsibility both for center based training and for outreach, and so I spent many, many years traveling around the state by car, working with ages from infancy, which certainly wasn't my forte. I liked preschool age and early elementary age students. I was most comfortable with that group, but then really we served all school age and adults as well, and so in that, I gained a lot of interest in customizing services and eventually devices, tools, for individuals. Before I continue, I'll just say again, too, that hopefully there will be plenty of opportunity for questions at the end, and feedback from all of you, but Andy, or Kassy, please catch my attention if you might, if there's an important question that someone has, I'm certainly willing to stop and address it. So, I worked for the University of Northern Colorado for a couple of years, and trained 11 certified O&M instructors. That was one of my highlights of my career, and a time that I spent a lot of time delving into and researching different topics, worked as adjunct faculty at the University of North Dakota, really for the most part, most of my career has been providing straightforward orientation and mobility services to kids and adults. A real fun thing that did I in my career is I guess you might say I invented, but then developed with the American printing house for the blind the game Treks, not that I'm looking for a pat on my back. That is a few years old. I kind of consider that one of the highlights of my career, because I just really enjoyed it. For those of you who have tried it, great. I see there's a little feedback in that regard, I like playing games, so there you go. That was one of my big loves. I'm an administrator now, and I don't get as much opportunity to teach O&M, but that's where my heart is. So I do want to, then, if we can go to the next slide, we'll get into the heart of what we're here for today, and when I first started experimenting with a prototype for the Dakota Disk, I even asked myself, why in the world do we need another cane tip, and by that time, Ambutech in particular had been producing some very good products, based on consumer demand and feedback from orientation and mobility instructors, and of course, you know, there's other manufacturers, and I'm not ‑‑ I'm not wanting to do a commercial for Ambutech by any mean, because I've used canes from all manufacturers, but again, in the mind set of wanting consumers to know all that is available to them, but I think we would all agree that the widest variety of accessories are probably available through Ambutech. I became a quick convert to rolling tips and rolling ball tips, because some of the benefits that they provide to both children and just diverse population, individuals that might have more difficulty with some of the traditional expectations of having the arm centered and equal arc, et cetera, but I'm not telling you anything new there, but the thought was is why another cane tip? And it did occur to me is not only blind travelers, but my colleagues might think I'm crazy. This was a little bit radical in some regards, and largely, and we'll get to this, because of the size. But I am posing the question to you, you know, again, why not consider all the options as ‑‑ as our profession continues to learn and do research, not only in strategies and how to address some of the new environmental challenges, and there have been some very good presentations on that yesterday and today that, again, there's new challenges all the time. But why not consider whether the tool that we would all agree has kind of been at the heart of our profession, the long cane, why would it not evolve along with some of these other changes? And the cane tip in particular is something that I have found with individuals, both children and adults, that they have a great deal of preference, and in some instances a great dislike for certain characteristics of particular cane tips, not only the size, but the composition, and we know there's so many options available for individuals now. I've had my favorites, and my own that I try not to demonstrate my bias with individuals, but I'll oftentimes, based on their characteristics, lean toward demonstrating a particular cane tip with an individual first, but I'm always careful to make certain that they know that there's a variety available, and encourage them to try a number of cane tips if it is Ambutech cane in fact where they're easily interchangeable so that they can make a comparison. I never want to be in a situation where some time in the future I've had an individual say, well, goodness, you didn't expose me to that particular cane tip, and my friend is using it, and I feel as though that I've been gypped. I might have benefited from using that particular cane tip. And so that's my mind set. So, again, there's many different types of cane tips, and I feel as though I have an appreciation for all of the variety that are available, but they certainly all come with some limitations, and we'll talk about that. I do make the point not everything new and cool has to be electronic. And that's where, again, as a profession I think that we never want to make any assumptions that we've done all that we can do with researching and experimenting with new ways of doing things. Okay. If we go on to the next slide, there's a video. Some of you may have seen it already. It is actually on the Ambutech website. I will just previous face it by just saying this was a one take video that my 16‑year‑old daughter took of me out in a rural area, and I hope it loads. It's actually a YouTube link, and hopefully it will continue to load up, and it's I believe less than two minutes in length and make some comments there after.... [ Video start: ] [ No audio for captioner ] [ Video end: ] Paul Olson: Okay. I just want to reiterate that the original intent was for rural travel conditions, both grass, gravel, and snow. And one of the northern states, and I think everyone knows that Ambutech is based in Canada. They had an interest in developing a tip that might have benefit in the snow. In this video, it's obviously summertime, and the surface was a gravel road with heavy grass and weeds along the shoulder. I will fully admit that this tip has limitations. Every tip does. As I started out in some heavy vegetation, well, it was maybe a couple of, three inches high, some weed, et cetera. If it was more substantial, it would get caught in the weeds, just like any other cane tip would. But mowed grass, that is four, five inches in height, gravel surfaces, et cetera, it will move most of the time go over those light obstacles with fair ease. When I intended to introduce this tip for rural travel, I knew early on there might be benefits for other individuals, but the focus really was developing something for rural travel. Being in a very rural state, that was my high interest, and I felt that when I promoted it to Ambutech, that would probably be their highest interest as well. But I tucked that away in the back of my mind that there might be other potential uses for it, and again hope that colleagues wouldn't think I was entirely crazy. I do want to note too ‑‑ and we'll get to it. I do want constructive criticism and honesty, and, I think again, everyone's experiences may be different in terms of both how sensitive it is, or how much feedback that you are provided both auditorially and tactilely, and again there's going to be plenty of opportunity to do that, but I welcome that. Again, I think every device has its own benefits and weaknesses. And we can advance to the next slide. The background with this, going back to early 2012, it was the summer months. I had been working with a young lady, she was probably sixth grade at that point, a student who comes for our short‑term programming, but who lived in a rural area, and as such, I was doing follow‑up lessons on that young lady's arm, where there was a nice house, number of outbuildings and then a hill, I guess effectively in the back yard, where her father had built a playhouse. Perhaps 75 or 100‑yards from a playhouse up a hill in heavy grass. Her and her sister would get up to that playhouse. It was their special place. And this young lady was pretty resilient. She was using a cane with a rolling ball tip, which I had promoted and she had a certain degree of success. But she was not shy either about telling me about the limitations and how frustrated she was when it would get lodged in some of the heavier grass along the edge of the lawn where the mower would, you know, cut the grass and it would get a few inches long, and right along the periphery there was taller grass, and she would walk along this taller grass to reach the playhouse, and again, the rolling ball tip continually getting stuck and having to be pulled back and repositioned in order to go up the hill to the playhouse. This is when, on my 150 mile plus drive back to headquarters that the light bulb went off that perhapses there would be a need for another ‑‑ another cane tip. I'm going to ask again. Can everyone hear me okay? Wonderful. Okay. So with that, I came back and, I hate to admit this, this was a pretty low tech operation, over the course of the weekend, I found a Frisbee, I inverted it. I used some special material that my wife had available, who is an occupational therapist. It's a thermoplastic material that can be heated in hot water, cut to size, and then when it cool, it will stay in the shape where you've molded it. What I did is I formed a little cup, I put it in the center of the inverted frisbee. I attached it with a short bolt, with a flat side underneath. What I effectively did, I made a cup just large enough so that the standard Ambutech cane tip would sort of snap into place, and that allowed the cane tip to kind of resolve and move and it was not hard to pull it and it would pop out. Pop it in, pop it out. It was still kind of a funny‑looking prototype, have I to admit, but I had a colleague who was visually impaired who tried it out before I took it and tried it with a student, and he was very favorable toward it. I shared video and then ultimately the prototype of the Ambutech company, and a man in particular that many of you may know, because he's had at a lot of conferences and has been the one for a number of years that has been the primary spokesperson for their product line, and to my amazement, they were excited about it. So it began in 2012. Quite a long low ses of working on prototypes where they would use their 3‑D printer and plastic material to come up with different prototype designs, and I was hoping they would really spread this out and use a number of mobility instructors for feedback, and they primarily used me, and I felt that would be more objective in some regards if they got a wider range of perspectives, but we continue to make progress. So I do want to say I've had zero financial benefit from working with Ambutech. I worked on this primarily during my time as a state employee, and never felt that that would be appropriate. I felt it would be a conflict of interest, and to be honest with you, I wanted to see something of this nature come to market. I felt that would be enough of a feather in my hat. So that said, I want to get to the next slide, which is specifications. And the four big ones are that in my mind, to make this even remotely appealing to both you as colleagues and to individuals, who might benefit from using it, is that first and foremost it would have to be easy to attach and remove. Durability certainly is always a characteristic we're looking at. The next one is really subjective, and that is size. I recognized early on that it couldn't be too big. The original prototype I had was a nine inch frisbee. I knew that was not going to fly, but I did not know how small we could reduce the disc where it would still have the same characteristics. And then the fourth one that is first and foremost in most people's mind would be its weight, because that is always a consideration. When we've had other cane tips that we've accepted into our field, and felt may be a benefit to a range of students, we're still always concerned about weight. I think that is pretty universal. In the picture accompanying this slide is the original sketch at the top that I ‑‑ when I sent this off to Ambutech after they had originally seen a prototype and talked about specifications more, I had originally thought that the hook style attachment would be appropriate, but I conceived it as a simple hinge, and in effect they really came up with a much better design. It's still a hook‑style connection, but my idea of having it be a hinge had some design errors. Not an engineer, obviously. And then I bulleted a number of considerations that I felt would be important for them to take into consideration. It really has more of a flat top versus a convex top. But one of the things I found out with a prototype being that it was simply an inverted frisbee, it would collect moisture and dust and you name it, any kind of debris. It needed to be a disc that was closed on the top, and in my mind, preferably convex so that it would shed any water. Okay. And I won't read through all of this accept for I will emphasize even early on the underside rounded edge of the frisbee coincidentally, as I looked at it, and tried to determine why that seemed to work so well is because there was a particular angle that allowed it to ride up over small rock, a small upheaval in the sidewalk, et cetera. And I didn't have a device that measured it, but in the meantime, and I'm sure the engineers at Ambutech can tell me exactly what that degree is, but I think it's something between like 15 and 18°, and we can probably go on to the next slide. Here is a picture of a Dakota Disk on the left side, which white in color, they do make it in both white and red. And it is just a smidge over six inches in diameter. Gord could tell me how many millimeters it is, but I still think in inches. The image in the lower right is a red disc which is actually attached to the shaft, and you can see that typical hook‑style opening where the loop would be pulled into a gap and then pulled upwards and then the elastic is held in place. The difference being that in most cane tips that hook is inserted into the shaft, whereas this attachment, we can ready see the opening where the elastic loop is inserted, and then I might here ‑‑ I might attempt to unfreeze my ‑‑ my camera for a moment. Okay. I'm going to hold this up, and show you ‑‑ I'm going to pull the elastic out and the cord lock which is typical to Ambutech canes is holding it so the cord doesn't retract. And I will show you again, you can see the gap, I've got the loop in hand, and as most of you are probably aware of, it's ‑‑ I hope you can see this. Push it into place and the loop fits into the gap. I can push the cord lock back up into the shaft of the cane, and then the other part of the design that I thought was very ingenious is that the top of the attachment actually allows the ‑‑ it's rounded, so the cane, as it moves from side to side, doesn't get stuck, it will correct and will come back into the position that is desired, but it does allow the disc to move 360° and at various angles. Okay. So I'll ‑‑ and let's see if I can pause my video again. There you go. Okay. So in the next slide, if we go forward, that's where you can most readily notice the ‑‑ the angle that I was referring to previously. I attempted to measure it myself. It's somewhat rounded. It's not ‑‑ it's a gradual curve, but it's somewhere in that 15 to 18°, I believe. All right. Let's ‑‑ let's move on to the next page. Okay. Just to kind of step back for a moment, and for kind of think about this a little more philosophically, what is the long cane? And I think we would all define it different ways, but I will in general call it a sensing tool. I think this make sense to all of us. We understand, you know, from our very beginning principles of orientation and mobility class, that what the cane has to offer. The information that's conveyed through the tip and through the shaft and into the hand and then ultimately to our brain provides an amazing amount of information, and I've always felt that a good portion of what my role is is to help individuals tap into what that information is giving them, give them some language, and ability to analyze what information that is available to them. So in that regard, again, I think it would be really naive to think that every cane tip and every cane is equal. We certainly know that there has been some research done indicating the science of that fibro tech, the auditory component. I'll even say again just giving a little shoutout to the NFB canes with the metal glider tips, they have a lot of individuals who are proponents of the type of auditory feedback that those metal glide tips provide. It just shows that there's a wide range of experiences and preferences that people have. So I did just want to kind of look at this and just have everyone think for a moment about again, what is it we're trying to accomplish with what might appear to be a very simple tool, but really is a very sophisticated tool when we stop and think about it. And so we'll go to the next slide. Now, I believe we're ‑‑ if Andy or Kendra, we're able to at this point, we'll kind of take a poll. Here is where I need your answers, and this is a little open ended, but please offer up what you think are some of the limitations with any of the cane tips that you've experienced as a professional. Getting stuck. Getting stuck is popular. Lack of sensitivity with some. General wear and tear of course. Falling. Well, and with the Dakota Disk, certainly it's large, so that is kind of the challenge when it's folded up, I would agree. Some of them break. The wearing certainly we recognize on both pencil tips and a lot of other tips is that they'll get worn down on one side, cracking, yeah. Distracting auditory feedback, and that is something, too, that people are very sensitive to, and I appreciate that, because, again, you know, I think we all recognize that individuals don't have necessarily superior auditory skills, they're very attune to what is happening auditorially if the more significantly visually impaired they are, they made greater use of that sense, and so anything that could be considered abrasive or unpleasant is certainly going to be a challenge. All right. This is good. All right. These are the responses I largely expected. Well, thank you for that. I will go on and I just want to show you ‑‑ I have a couple of clip, but this is just a picture of a four‑year‑old that in his living room setting, I thought that it might be nice just to tell you my experiences in putting it into the hands of a few little ones, that it seemed rather intuitive. Now, one of the things when ‑‑ if we for instance have gotten past a push toy or some other transitionary tool that might be appropriate, I'm a big fan of that as well, certain ages and motor skills, and by the way, a big shoutout to Grace with that safe toddles. I think there's so much merit in that for those little ones that are just taking their first steps and of course maybe some students that are older as well. It's really up to us as professionals to help sort through what the best device is at a particular time. But this little guy here, you can see is holding the child‑size cane, and with a handle that's the appropriate size. Holding it centered in front of him, and with both hands, but as he walked around in his living room setting, it was so fluid in my opinion, you can see that there is a low area rug that I think this student would probably do well with a regular cane tip, but I was curious about his interest in exploring, in his ease of movement, and I don't have any video of him, but, again, the mind set being that at a particular age, and you look at motivation, motor skills, and wanting to build a lot of success for a younger student, kind of again setting up the fact that I think this could be another option to provide to young children as they're starting out. We recognize that a lot of time attention and motor skills result in the student missing a lot of information so it's on us as mobility instructors, and I like to think of it as coaching, as providing that reinforcement that really taps into that student's best learning style. We don't nag. We want to provide positive reinforcement, but we recognize there's a good portion of the time that they're missing the surface preview, so safety is a big question with a lot of kids. Even if ‑‑ even if while monitored and with a few prompts, they are doing quite well, we recognize that many times that they are missing critical information that could impact both their safety and their ability to feel comfortable in the environment they're moving. We'll go to the next slide. Okay. Here is a little video clip. This young lady is doing quite well with the standard cane, but here is just a little sample of her moving in our hallway. The thing that I was impressed with, again, is she does not always have her head up looking forward. So I titled this slide "head's up, smooth sailing," and let's play. [ Video start: ] Side to side. There you go. Side to side. [ Video end: ] Paul Olson: Okay. Just a short clip, not the best resolution there, but I think it demonstrates again just, as we're working with children, we recognize on some days they tend to have greater attention span. We're working on providing a lot of positive feedback if they are modeling good technique. I have another clip of this young lady. I wasn't so worried about her indoor movement, but I did have a lot of concern about how she was doing on a play ground, and you will see a little bit of that in a moment as well. So I would like you to make some assumptions, or this is another poll, and knowing that most of you have had experience with young cane users, I'm asking you to speculate as to what some of the potential benefits might be for a young cane user if they have the option to use the Dakota Disk. You might be thinking of a three‑year‑old or a six‑year‑old, I'll leave that up to your imagination. What are some of the potential benefits you might anticipate? Cover more surface area, willingness to explore environments. More tactile feedback. Wider arc. Easy to push and sweep. Less frustration with it getting stuck. Now, these are some of the same thoughts that I have had. Now, with every potential benefit we can sometimes think of some challenges that come along with it. And I have still ‑‑ I really am a traditionalist in that it's important for me to impress upon students of all ages how important it is to keep the arm centered, how important it is to have a good arc width, and have a good rhythm, and boy, I'm not much of a singer, but I spent some time trying to sing little songs with kids and trying to get them to, you know, move their cane from side to side at a particular pace and, oh, boy, if there was anyone else around, I'd usually kind of stop, but if it's just me and the student, I'm not so shy as to try to, you know, motivate them by doing some of those things. And but I have found that if there is a little less anxiety, I have found that they do seem to do a little better when there's a greater surface area covered. And I think whether a person finds that there might be some disadvantages with that, or not, it is evident that a greater surface area is covered with this particular cane tip. Okay. Let's go on to the next one, and here you're going to see the same young lady, this is a video clip. Our playground has pea rock as the material. Her cane is not centered exactly. But I still think that you will see some degree of confidence with her moving over this surface. [ Video start: ] Oh, side to side, though, still. Does it work side to side? Yeah. Whew! Good job. [ Video end: ] Paul Olson: Okay. She's a fun one, I've got to tell you. She has optic nerve Coloboma and iris Coloboma, 2400 distance acuity, in lighting conditions where it's bright out and shaded, she does have difficulty finding particular pieces of playground equipment. She was visually looking toward the swings. I'm always one who is concerned about swings because, of course, as kids approach, and other kids are swinging, there's kind a hazard there. In this case there was no other kid on the swings, but she wasn't looking down at the ground or concerned about her fluid movement. She was moving along quite nicely. My experience has also been that it does well on wood chips, rubber chips, et cetera. Some playgrounds now have that hard rubber material and that is even better. Most canes work quite well with that hard, rubberized material. But many playgrounds are not of that new high tech material. They're more likely wood chips or pea rock or something of that nature. So there you go. And let's ‑‑ let's move ‑‑ oh, I do want to say, too, again, I'm a big believer that children should be taught protective arm techniques. I don't know if I've been particularly successful with that as I would like over the years, because we know that a lot of banged noses and foreheads could be prevented if kids readily, initially ‑‑ initiate use of protective arm techniques. My experience has been they're usually more concerned about getting to their friend or the swing and forget to initiate at the right time. But, again, I don't think this solves all of their problems, but it does give them another option, at least when children are getting familiarized to a playground, this little young gal I think can move around on the playground to some degree visually without a cane in hand, and sometimes they ditch the cane and a particular piece of playground equipment. I want them to be able to move from piece of equipment, from one to the next, with their cane, so they always have it available to them. Okay. We'll go on to the next slide. Now, just address some thoughts I have about alternative mobility devices. I love them. I ‑‑ when they came out with the section on all the different types of alternative mobility devices that could be built, I was an immediate fan. I experimented, made variations. Had a workshop years ago with Bruce, who is very creative. It was kind of a fun, creative event. Again, I really feel that or if we're thinking and keeping in mind all of the considerations for a particular individual, there are individuals who an alternative mobility device might be a fantastic addition to their life and their level of independence. We know that a lot of folks in group homes ‑‑ and I'll say group homes kind of generically, that's where I experience individuals with cognitive challenges, as well as physical challenges. Those diverse populations. They oftentimes continue to need some monitoring, and ‑‑ but, their level of independence and their confidence moving in a particular setting can really be enhanced. So of course, you know, with preschool children, sometimes call them a pre‑cane device, if it's more of a transition, the hope is they will move to a child‑size cane, and if they would seem to be a good candidate for learning what we would consider traditional cane techniques and the benefits that would go along with that, but it seems as though pre‑cane device is not a term that we hear as much anymore. Alternative mobility devices are ‑‑ AMD is the term that is more commonplace, and anyhow, again, push toys might be very appropriate as a transition. Alternative mobility devices, or pre‑canes with little ones still might absolutely be the best choice. I am not saying that the Dakota Disk would be the best choice, it's just one of many options. When we look at older children who are diverse, and thank you for the head's up that we have fifteen minutes... you know, my experience is that probably the population that I work with the most over the years that I think of are individuals with some degree of cerebral palsy. There's difficulty that they experience with walking. Body movements in general. Muscle rigidity. Coordination challenges. Overreactive reflexes. And a number of instances, I feel that it was the best solution ultimately for some of those folks to use an alternative mobility device. Had some experience working with some folks with milder CP who are independent in their communities or had potential to be independent, and a regular cane was with a balltip for instance, might have been a combination that was helpful. But I would contend that there are many individuals who might need a device that is in between the alternative mobility device. Also contend that the long cane has the benefit of identifying the individual as someone with a visual impairment. They're kind of universally ‑‑ well, it's not universal, but close to, in the United States at least, the general public is typically aware of what a white cane is where they might not be as aware of what an alternative mobility device is, and the fact that it shows or identifies the individual as having a visual impairment. So that said, I think we all recognize there's individuals of all ages who have some motor challenges and sometimes cognitive issues. I think we're going to skip past this next poll, if we might, Andy, in essence of time. And I will just jump to what I think might be some of the ‑‑ well, I'll read here for individuals. There's several benefits of using the Dakota Disk, and the ones that come to mind for me are they require less effort to maintain adequate arc. Again, I'm not saying adequate arc is not important. Always want to try to model an adequate arc. I'm a big believer that is what is going to be in the best interest of every learner, so they model and are able to be as safe as possible in all environments. Surface area covered is increased making detections, changes more likely. I did see someone note earlier they felt that the feedback that the Dakota Disk provides could be misleading, and I have no doubt that could be the case. It takes a lot of time to discern from the student what feedback they are getting from the increased surface area. If you drop a dime on the floor, if you're looking for it, for instance on a carpeted floor it's pretty easy to find. One of the exercises I enjoyed most early on in my training and I would do it with students is finding small objects with a regular cane. Making an arc shaped movement to try to find that small dropped object. That might be kind of a rare skill that people teach, but with the Dakota Disk, it is actually quite easy to discern a small object that is different from the floor surface. Moving on, people did say earlier one of the limitations with regular K tips is they get stuck. When a cane tip gets stuck, the whole cane pushes back, it can be uncomfortable, it can be destabilizing, if the Dakota Disk bumps into something, certainly it's the same reaction you would get with any tip. There's an obstacle, you can't keep going forward. So I would say that any experience has been that that unexpected recoil is less likely. And then I feel, I may be biased because the research doesn't show this yet, it's just my anecdotal information, that dropoff is enhanced. So I will say here, I'll probably say this at the end again, but I am hoping that this encouraging some enthusiastic scholar, some researcher folks out there, and I know there's some in this audience, who have much more expertise than myself, and I would like hard research done in this area in the future. Whether it's discounts what some of my assumptions are, I think that is perfectly fine. The more we know about what a particular tool can do for an individual, the better. The next slide is another short video, this is a young man that I had been working with since preschool. He's quite a capable young man, but you will notice that he does have some motor challenges, and ‑‑ [ Video start: ] Paul Olson: This is Brandon trying out the Dakota Disk. So okay, does that work pretty smooth on the grass, Brandon, what do you think of it? Brandon: It's really good. Paul Olson: Okay. Why don't I back up a little bit, follow me over to the sidewalk I. want to see you sweep it just a little bit. Go ahead, any time. And then, you know, if you keep veering over this direction, you will find the sidewalk. All right. So what's your impression of this compared to a regular cane tip on grass? Brandon: I like it. I mean, it's a lot more smooth and it doesn't get stuck. That's my biggest thing, it doesn't get stuck. Paul Olson: Okay. Now, I see that we're runs out of time. The next slide is ‑‑ demonstrates the cane on ice and snow. Let's get past that. That might not be as great of interest. I will quickly reference that one of the things that just happened, somewhat by accident, is the folks, the Guide Dog Mobility Instructors group in Australia, picked up and they did a study, and they just ‑‑ there was interest. He had been down there for a presentation, he distributed I believe 20 or more Dakota Disks, there was some nice feedback, we'll look at that slide real briefly, again, it was very small, but aren't all of our studies small? I was very interested in the feedback they provided. They were used on a variety of surfaces. You can see there's only two people under the age of 17. A number of people between 40 and 59, and four that were 60 and older. The characteristics may have varied quite a lot. But they were considered to be average to above average cane users, they all were proficient. So they had some positive comments. They compared it to the bamboo Barber. Some of them had experience with that. Obviously Australia is a country where there's a certain degree of ruggedness and rural, et cetera. Some of the negative comments were they felt it was very noisy on roads. You probably would agree with that. Although I would say they're not meant for roads, they would go over a road surface temporarily. If you're using them indoor, on tile or carpet, or out in grass, you know, that noise is not as brain sieve. Let's go to the next slide, and we'll end here I guess just by saying, you know, I'm not contending it's better than any other tip. I'm just holding it out as another option for people to have in their professional toolkit. Reference the commitment we have to learners in our code of ethics. I think there were a couple of questions. I know we're running out of time. Someone asked about stairs. My experience on stairs, with myself and a couple of consumers and a couple of colleagues that really the technique did not have to be varied a great deal for ascending or for descending the additional weight was not significant. When ascending, if the disk would tip down, you made contact on the leading edge of each step as you go up, it does not get stuck on nosing. I don't think the technique has to be varied at all is my personal opinion, from my experience. Durability. It's made out of the plastic material, it had to be some degree of softness in order for the sound to not be harsh and abrasive. The original model was with an AVC plastic that was brittle and loud. I don't think they've been out long enough for anyone to determine what their life span is. So that's my answer with that. Yeah, and when switching tips, Dona, thank you, Dona, just sent me a video of one of her students using it in a beach setting. I don't know how it is for a particular individual to switch tips, but I know if I were living in an area where I wanted to go out and do some hiking in a park or go to the beach, I certainly wouldn't use the Dakota Disk the majority of the time, I would switch it out when I would get to that environment. That takes planning. You're not just going to have it. You need to think ahead as an individual, and just like with many I things, they have to plan ahead, and so that is how I would respond to that. [ Video start: ] There is some inconvenience, I would admit, but it's all about having options available for the consumer. [ Video end: ] Any other questions that I haven't addressed? If, Andy, if you want to back up and show the ice video, that would be perfectly fine, we can finish there. [ Title: ] International O&M Online Symposium Thank you [ Music ] Fade to black.