Protective techniques are techniques that shield the body. These techniques focus on the upper body and the lower body with the hand and forearm providing a buffer between contact with an obstacle and the individual's body.

Protective techniques are used for short periods of time when the individual is perhaps traveling a short distance without their cane. Upper body protective techniques are still useful when using a cane as a cane does not provide information about upper body obstacles.

Protective Techniques

a. Hand Trailing Procedure

• Using the cane and/or the hand to lightly follow along a surface.

  • Student faces direction of travel parallel to wall or surface usually on the right-hand side to move with traffic. The arm near the wall is positioned at waist-height in front of the body with the fingers slightly bent, thumb tucked in, and hand slightly cupped with knuckles gliding along the wall.

    • Protective techniques may need to be used in conjunction in rooms with potential obstacles.

b. Upper Hand and Forearm Procedure

• Protecting the upper part of the body and head-level obstacles during travel such as under cupboards, trees, or when picking up a dropped item beneath a table.

  • Palm of hand faces out and away from student with fingers together and hand at shoulder level towards opposite shoulder with fingers extending just past the shoulder and out about a foot forwards to create a buffer from the upper body and face.

    • Fingers should be relaxed and together so that hand gently contacts the obstacle without stubbing fingers.

    • Taller students might need to extend a cane or an object to extend the arm so that the arm doesn't just pass above a low obstacle.

  • When picking up an object from below a table, lead with palm out directly above head so that hand makes contact with table or obstacle prior to head.

c. Modified Upper Hand and Forearm Procedure

• Team should determine prompt for young children such as "bumpers out".

• Arm position may need to be slightly modified with fingers angled up more to ensure that the arm covers the forehead from obstacles.

d. Lower Hand and Forearm Procedure

• Protecting the waist, hip, and upper leg area of the body during travel

  • Back of hand faces away from student across the waist toward opposite thigh positioning the hand and arm across the body and out about a foot to create a buffer from the lower body.

e. Direction Taking (parallel alignment)

• Useful when approaching an intersection in a hallway

  • Student trails wall until an intersection where the student will pause and align side of body closest to the wall and then proceeds forward without veering.

    • With practice, the student won't need to pause to align with the wall and will eventually rely on auditory skills to sense where the wall is.

f. Squaring Off (perpendicular alignment)

• Useful when crossing a hallway

  • Student places back against wall or curb to help aim in a straight line of travel across the hallway or room

    • Practice crossing hallways comfortably first before moving to crossing rooms.

g. Teaching Suggestions/Observations

• Embed instruction into daily routines to provide short, frequent, low stress exposure.

• Obstacle course set up to practice techniques in a safe environment

  • Balloons overhead

  • Course set up using everyday furniture items

h. Concepts Needed for Protective Techniques

• Body Concepts

  • Body Parts

  • Body Awareness

• Time and Distance Concepts

  • Hours; Minutes; Seconds

  • English units: Feet; Yards; Miles

  • Metric units: Meters; Kilometers

  • Informal Measurements: Length of a city block; Number of steps

• Concepts to minimize risk

  • Safety commands such as stop, no, and wait

  • Environmental dangers such as cars or drop offs

  • Society dangers such as stranger danger

  • Body language that indicates you are not a victim