Good morning colleagues, I am one of the people who signed up for this study. As an OMM instructor and a king user, I fit into two of those categories on the table. I knew the date it would be in favor of the guy dog because guide dogs for the blind was one of the leading participants with AFV. However, I didn?t realize how skewed the participation was going to be. they had 29K dog users, 18 users and six orientation and mobility instructors. I assume some of us were in both team user and instructor categories. I would like to see more cane users. I?m not sure why they were not able to attract more. If that was the case, why didn?t they limit the number of dog users to keep things balanced? They already had everything else going for them. I have pasted the table below and below that is the email from Ariel with the links. It?s not a bad article but it?s a lot more scared than I thought it was going to be. Mostly because of the numbers. I expected the entire study to be a cheerleading chant for the gay dog but I was really hoping for more even numbers. My actual motivation for participating in the study had nothing to do with the results though. I wanted a chance to make my concerns known to GDB about blind orientation and mobility instructor is trying to fill out forms to send our clients to their school. They have always been one of the least accessible kind of schools and I wanted a chance to remind them that The Americans with disabilities act applies to them as well. Here is the forwarded message. Type of Participant Number GDB graduates 16 GDB staff 9 Staff from other GD schools 5 Diverse GD users across U.S. and Canada 29 Cane users 8 O&M instructors 6 LV using no mobility aid 2 Sent from my iPhone Begin forwarded message:

From: Arielle Silverman <asilverman at afb.org> Date: September 22, 2022 at 7:15:53 PM CDT To: arielle71 at gmail.com Subject: Results now available from the GDB-AFB collaborative research study!

?Hello all, Thank you very much for participating in one of our focus groups last year as part of our collaborative study with Guide Dogs for the Blind! A report showcasing our main research findings is now available. You can read the report here: https://www.afb.org/research-and-initiatives/role-guide-dogs-joint-afb-gdb-r... Or read a press release about the main study findings here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220922005306/en/Guide-Dogs-for-the-...

We deeply appreciate your willingness to share your lived experience with us, and we believe your contributions will make a real difference in the lives of blind and low-vision individuals.

Best regards, Arielle Silverman, Ph.D. Director of Research American Foundation for the Blind Phone: 202-469-6832 Email: asilverman at afb.org