I'm an O&M Specialist in Canada, so there may be some slight differences to where you are.

Generally speaking, an assessment is done when the specialist first meets, to determine what your skills are, if there are any immediate safety concerns and what your goals are. If someone has big goals but just starting off (they want to go to college, but they haven't even crossed the street yet), the goals are usually broken down into smaller parts.

How often lessons are done can be influenced by a few factors. Severe weather (snow, lightning, hail, extreme cold) makes outdoor lessons significantly more difficult. It also depends on the caseload of the specialist and how much time you have. I usually do one lesson a week, although that varies. Some people do a lesson every other week, so they have time to practice. Other people need to get training faster (to return to work or something), so lessons might be done more often. Either way, practicing is still an important step.

Other factors that could influence how long could be the amount of remaining vision, what kind of public transportation is available, what tools you want to learn to use (Google Maps, Blindsquare, etc) and other health complications.

Joining you.... hoping it will help me to stop tripping over myself 😄

The cane is a simple tool. You gain confidence with practice. You use the cane to check that the step you give is secure.
Imagine, walking in a pitch dark place, using a flashlight to illuminate and sicure each step. It's the same with the cane.

In Australia, it took months to get an appointment initially because of covid, and then once it was rescheduled it took less than two weeks to get my initial appointment.

In that appointment, we talked about my sight, my concerns, the trouble I was having getting around safely and confidently, and then we got straight to work. We did about an hour with a trial cane that my O&M had in her bag of tricks, and within a week my own free cane had arrived in the mail (in NSW, you can get one free cane and tip a year, and more if you have disability insurance funding).

A week before my first appointment, I was nearly hit by a car crossing a busy 7 lane road, on my own, in bad lighting (overcast, day), in the rain. I ended up having my mum take me to class because I was too scared to cross it again on my own.

For me, that first hour was a life-changer. I learned to navigate elevators, crossing busy streets at the traffic lights, crowds at malls, escalators and stairs (up and down). My local organization is in the busiest part of the city and right near a mall, which is a very good place if you like the trial-by-fire approach (I know it's not for everyone, but it really was helpful for me). Once my cane arrived, I started crossing that road alone. Having that symbol of vision impairment in my hand, really made a huge difference to my confidence levels.I had two further sessions of 2 hours and 2.5 hours (which ran over to 3 hours because sometimes, buses don't show up when they're supposed to). All of that happened within 7 weeks of the rescheduling actually happening, and my mobility, independence, and confidence have shot right up.

In that small amount of time, I became confident leaving my house alone, taking buses and the metro alone, navigating several different busy public places, and even going out at night (something I hadn't done in nearly two years because I had an accident and messed up my ankle falling off the footpath into a ditch by a construction site in the dark).


Edit: as soon as you have your own cane in your hand, practice, practice, practice. Take yourself for a walk somewhere every day until it's second nature to you. I started taking walks every day, and it can only improve your skills.


A helpful hint: Don't walk too fast for the first few weeks. It takes time to improve your reaction time between feeling something with the cane and stopping. You will hit yourself in the guts, a lot, so don't go walking on a full stomach or when you're feeling nauseous. The more you walk, though, the better your reaction time will be, and the less you'll jab yourself between the hipbone and ribcage like a prize fighter.

So I used to work as an admin for a place that does o+m instruction so I processed reports and tracked hours for billing and there’s a huge range of services. For adults there’s kind of four different categories which are all treated differently.

One category is people with intellectual disabilities, which usually get seen regularly but infrequently, and it’s more about helping their caregivers or program know good ways to help them get around and involved in activities.

Then there’s senior/“not working or looking for work” folks who usually get seen several times in a short period of time to get used to getting around without sight.

But if you’re posting on Reddit and making your own choices you’re probably either a college age student or an adult.

College students training seems to be paid for by the schools and therefore is more limited in scope. They usually get several O+M trainings early in the semester to get to know the campus and how to get to all their classes, and it’s primarily on campus.

If you’re a working adult, you get a lot of say in what you want to learn and practice. You should have some goals in mind when they do your intake appointment. Where do you need to learn to go? Work? Grocery store? Doctors office? Your kids school? Coffee shop? They’ll spend a lot of time working with you on street crossings, how to use a cane, and public transit. They can teach you how to advocate for like, getting help at the grocery store, or how to register as a blind person on public transit. Make sure you tell them what you need! If you have special circumstances like maybe you have a kid and they are in a stroller, the instructor can help you learn how to use that equipment safely. You and your instructor will figure out what you want and what schedule works for both of you. Most of the time I’ve seen people in this situation get several appointments over a couple of months initially, and then if circumstances change, another appointment or two to learn a new route or something if you move or get a new job.

(If you’re in high school, which it doesn’t sound like you are, your IEP will say your goals and times that you can do O+M)

If you have any other questions that you think I could answer let me know! I’m not blind but my teenaged son is , and i worked as the admin for o+m instructors for a few years so I’ve got a pretty good idea of how that works (at least in the US)

My sessions are usually for about an hour every other week, though I have a nasty habit of not feeling up for it and canceling or rescheduling more often than I probably should. I had a session last week, where we went and walked the block I live on and I have a session next week where we will probably do the same.

I am currently doing O&M and I find it pretty beneficial, I did not want to do it at first but I’m glad I am doing it now.

Usually when I did them it was weekly I did most of it during grade school it was the most hilarious thing because mobility teacher ran out of things to teach me senior year we just chilled and hung out, we didn’t discontinued lessons. We baked cakes and he was a yoga instructor outside of mobility like after that job so he tried teaching me, my heart really was not in it so we didn’t go on haha, which I was really glad of.

In my first few years of college I got mobility lessons for a bit in san francisco from the lighthouse through vocational rehabilitation and did it weekly. Eventually I just went out to explore myself. I had a few lessons when I transfered back down to los angeles for school but it was very brief.