Stop Taking Our Canes Away

This blog post is essentially an expansion of a very long thread about cane travel which I wrote on Twitter. Feel free to check out and engage with the original thread, though much of the content is the same.

Cane travel, or orientation and mobility instructors, are tasked with the job of teaching blind people how to travel. This includes everything from putting our first cane in our hand to teaching us how to safely cross the road, navigate shops, safely get on and off trains, use escalators, and speak up when we need assistance. It is a huge job and it’s one that’s a really vital part of blind people having the freedom and skills to move through the world.

I received orientation and mobility services from about the age of five. I was visited by an instructor when I was at primary school and then at a school for the blind mobility, as it is typically known, was part of my curriculum. My experiences with o&m as a child and teenager were overwhelmingly good, I was a reluctant cane user, but I was gently and kindly encouraged by my teachers. My mobility teacher at NCW, the school for the blind, was someone who I could confide in. She saw how low my confidence was and she met me where I was at, trying to help me build my confidence, but also understanding that this would take time. The troubling things I discuss in this post are experiences I have had as an adult, not as a child within the school system.

If you get given a white cane, many teachers will give you one that comes up to your chest. It is usually recommended that a cane reaches up to your sternum. This is the “standard” length, which programmes that train orientation and mobility teachers for blind people say should be used. Other models of cane travel, such as structured discovery and perceptual navigation, which are primarily taught and created by blind people, recommend a longer cane. Usually somewhere around up to your nose. My cane is even longer, it reaches up to my forehead. I experimented with different lengths and found that this length works the best for me. It allows me to travel quickly and to have time to react to obstacles in my path. To put it in perspective, I started with a cane that reached my sternum, then moved to one that was about shoulder height, then a little below my chin, reaching my mouth, my nose, and finally my forehead. This gradual increase in cane length happened over a period of years. It was not something I rushed into. I am objectively a better traveller because of it, I don’t fall down steps or crash into things because I now have the time to respond to my surroundings.

You would think that orientation and mobility teachers, who have the job of getting blind people travelling safely, would celebrate this. For the most part they do not. I hear stories all the time of blind people having their canes taken away from them and being replaced with shorter versions. Or teachers who refuse to train a blind person until they swap to a different length cane. Blind people come to me and tell me these stories because they know what my views are. And these people are often trapped, they might need some training, but they can’t get it unless they give up the mobility aid that works for them. This post, and the thread it has been developed from, was motivated by another blind adult reaching out to tell me that the cane travel instructor they had been assigned by a blindness charity had told them that their cane, which reaches their shoulder, is too long. I am using neutral pronouns here in the hope that this might go some way towards protecting the identity of the individual. This is not an unusual story for me to hear and I have witnessed first-hand these kinds of attitudes.

This attitude reinforces an awful power dynamic and it’s just accepted because that’s the way things have always been done. It’s ok to treat blind adults like children and punish them for having an opinion, which isn’t actually ok to do to children either. The opinions and experiences of blind adults are routinely dismissed and talked over because the blind adult doesn’t have professional experience. Never mind that they are the one using the cane and are the expert in how blindness affects their life. Even blind people who do have professional credentials are treated with suspicion and condescension, as if their experiences are not equivalent and the training they have received not up to standard.

Mobility aids exist to improve the lives of disabled people. Should we ensure that using the mobility aid isn’t causing strain on the joints? Absolutely. But so long as the mobility aid works for the disabled person and is comfortable, that’s where it should end. Many of these teachers have a self-righteous, angry attitude towards blind people deciding what length cane works best for them. And yet there is no substantial evidence to suggest that shorter canes are better.

What we actually know about blindness and travel is still quite limited. Expectations are typically very low, and many teachers will only teach a blind person routes, because they do not believe a blind person can travel freely. A teacher does not think this for no reason. These kinds of attitudes towards blindness and blind people are encouraged by programmes that train instructors. The system still devalues blind people and our abilities, to the extent where this kind of dismissive attitude isn’t challenged, and sometimes even encouraged.

There is no research to back any of these negative attitudes up. Nothing that says blind people are incapable of learning general travel skills as opposed to specific routes. And nothing to say that a shorter cane length makes blind people better travellers. In fact, the studies that do exist have produced conflicting results. This study indicates that cane length may not have an impact on drop off detection. The age at which the blind person started using a cane, the amount of training they’ve received, and at what point the blind person lost their vision seem to have a greater impact than the length of the cane itself. This should not be surprising. You’re going to find blind people who are excellent at mental mapping and with a certain skill set can travel anywhere. And you’re going to find blind people who learn specific routes and find this works best. Because blind people are people, with different strengths. Knowing this, why does it matter what length cane a blind person uses. Whether it’s to their forehead, or to their chest, so long as they are travelling safely and comfortably it isn’t actually anyone’s business. Suggesting different techniques, lengths and grips is fine, it’s good to give a blind student options and show them what’s available, but withholding training is not ok.

The only reason I can come up with is that teachers do not like to be wrong. These programmes teach them that they, the sighted, must instruct the blind. The thought process is that without their instruction we would be destined for a life of helplessness. When blind people start speaking out and insisting that they know best what they need, the whole notion of a sighted saviour is flipped on its head. Suddenly, the sighted instructor is not the authority. They may still be needed and valued, but their role has changed. And so has the role of the blind person. Until recently, the criteria to admit students into these programmes was deliberately written to exclude blind students. This document, which compares traditional COMS with NOMC training highlights some of the barriers experienced by blind people trying to enter the profession in the United States. Similar policies and attitudes exist worldwide, even today.

Of course if you only ever teach blind people routes, and tell them they cannot stray from the path, this is all they will be able to do. This limitation is literally created by the professionals, for the most part. We, blind people, see this play out time and time again. When an individual loses their vision, the attitude of the professionals that suddenly must enter their life has a huge impact on the eventual outcome. Will this newly blind person become someone who believes they can still travel freely through the world, either solo, or getting assistance as required? Or do they believe that now they are blind, they must only walk specific routes, dictated to them by a sighted instructor.

The idea that there is one cane length that is correct is in itself such a backwards and counter-productive viewpoint. The fact that this is accepted as fact, when there is no evidence to substantiate this claim, is irresponsible at best. Just because something has always been taught a certain way, doesn’t mean that way is actually the best or that we should continue to use it. This is why teaching theory exists and why we are constantly trying new methods of instruction because we recognise that traditional methods aren’t necessarily superior. There are some sighted teachers who are speaking out and saying this. I was introduced to Daniel Kish, a blind orientation and mobility instructor, by my sighted teacher. But these people are still a minority within the field.

When will the blindness field catch on? When will it become acceptable to say out loud that perhaps just because we once decided that canes should come up to the breast bone, this may not be the best or only length of cane that is effective. And when will people start listening to blind cane users and recognising that the individual using the mobility aid has the right to say what feels most comfortable for them.

Stop taking our canes away. Stop telling us that we cannot explore the world around us. Stop imposing limitations on us out of a misguided belief that blind people can never move through the world unless the path has been mapped out for us in advance. Blind people are as diverse and unique as any other group within our society. As individuals we have different skills, needs and desires. You cannot view “the blind” as a singular entity, who must all be dealt with the same way. These needs and preferences must be recognised and we must be accepted as the multifaceted, complex humans that we are.