New skill is a great step for blind pupils - video (From Worcester News)

New skill is a great step for blind pupils - video

2:02pm Tuesday 12th May 2009 in Search

FOR blind children who are learning about the outside world and navigating themselves around it, there are many obstacles they need to overcome.

Not only do they have to learn how to cope with their disability, but they also have to be able to ‘see’ the world around them so they don’t put themselves into dangerous situations.

While using a cane allows blind people to identify objects in their immediate surroundings just beyond arm’s reach, there is a growing number who are able to use the skill of echolocation, which provides a 360-degree “vision” for dozens of metres or more.

It uses clicking sounds from the mouth, which is similar to animal echolocation used by bats and dolphins, and when combined with the long cane can give far greater freedom.

At New College Worcester, the residential school and college in Whittington Road for young people who are blind or partially sighted, they were visited by a world leading expert in this incredible skill.

Daniel Kish from California visited the school to help train his protégé, 14-year-old Fritz Bisau who is also totally blind, along with other pupils at the school.

Mr Kish discovered echolocation by accident as a child and was raised to believe he could do anything. He quickly taught himself how clicking with his tongue could help him detect what was around him.

For Fritz – who also taught himself the skill as a young child and was, until the visit, the only student at the school to use it – Mr Kish is his hero, and he jumped at the chance to meet and learn from him.

Fritz said: “Everyone has to have a way of deriving information about their surroundings.

“Some people may use their eyes which are the main organs that are used. But there are others, like hearing. In nature, some animals use smell, for instance the polar bear uses smell as its main sense.

“Without this use of echolocation, I wouldn’t really know how to do much. I wouldn’t be able to cycle. I would be confined.

“Using this echolocation has given me a wider insight into the world and has helped me have a wider range of options and a better way to perceive my environment.”

Mr Kish said: “I help to foster the development of perceptual skills in students, particularly in the area of echolocation. It is an ability which allows an individual to perceive the characteristics of the environment at a distance.

“With that information it allows people to orientate themselves better and they can be more free and flowing in their movements.

“It allows more options for people to interact with the environment and participate in the goings on in the world, and I have come to the UK to help people develop those skills to a greater degree,” he said.

What is even more amazing is that Mr Kish and others like him who use echolocation do not have better than average hearing.

The skill lies in their ability to pay attention to detail and Mr Kish believes most of his students can pick up, refine, and use it to work out the world around them, from solid objects to trees and softer items.

He said: “When the sound goes out like a click, it bounces off objects and comes back to the listener. The brain, I believe, calculates the difference between the outgoing click and the returning sound.

“If I make a click and it is at a solid wall, that click is going to come back with a very similar sound as it went out with. The wall reflects that sound back at me. It’s going to reflect it from all different directions.

“If I click at a pole, only a narrow space of that click will come back. The rest of the click goes away. So essentially the click takes the shape of the object that you are detecting.

“If you are clicking at a tree, what happens is the various elements of the tree: the leaves, the branches, the various angled limbs scatter the sound in all directions and when it comes back to you it comes back in pieces almost.

“So the brain can hear that. It can calculate the bits of sound coming back to you. When the sound bounces off objects, that sound is changed from a tongue click to a reflection in a way which corresponds with the object. Soft objects sound soft. Solid walls literally sound big and solid,” he said.

For students wanting to learn the skill, Mr Kish said it wasn’t as difficult as it sounds.

“I think in the few hours we have been working here we have seen a lot of progress in all the students. The comment I get is that it’s surprisingly easy. Like anything, refinement takes time.

“But going from either not having any skill at all to being able to actually apply the skill, the students never even considered they would be able to do is very telling,” he added.