Prepared For 1ST INTERNATIONAL ONLINE CONFERENCE ON ... · FlashSonar™- ‘Seeing’ With Your...

[Caption: Logo consisting of a silhouette of Daniel Kish wearing a backpack while walking with his long navigation cane, set against a gradient blue sound wave radiating outward, and a reflecting grey sound wave. Blue text below reads World Access For The Blind. Beneath this in grey reads: Our Vision Is Sound, followed by a line in blue: Perceptual Nav-igation For The Blind. Mid-page is a banner showing Daniel with a group of helmeted students raising their long navi-gation canes together in a ‘all for one, one for all’ pose at the start of a cycling path. White text over gradient blue reads: FlashSonar™ - ‘Seeing’ With Your Ears. Daniel Kish, MA,MA COMS, NOMC | Lead Founder | President - World Access For The Blind.]

Prepared For

1ST INTERNATIONAL ONLINE CONFERENCE ON INCLUSION AND REHABILITATION OF THE VISUALLY IMPAIRED

Brazil December 11-13, 2015

INTRODUCTION: Daniel Kish taught himself to “see” by making tongue clicks, and then listening to the echoes. Now he’s teaching others.

As a toddler, Daniel Kish lost both his eyes to retinal cancer. But according to his mom, that barely slowed him down. On his own, Daniel learned to use a form of sonar, like a bat, to navigate the world. By making a clicking sound with his tongue on the roof of his mouth, he could hear the result-ing sound waves reflect back to him from objects around him. He learned to walk independently, graduated to climbing trees and then, when he was six, learned to bicycle on his own. Of course, as Daniel points out, riding at speed does require him to “click a lot!” Today the real-life Batman believes that too many institutions and people are dictating to blind per-sons what they can and cannot do. So, Daniel started a non-profit organization, called 'World Access For The Blind’ (WAFTB), to teach his 'No Limits' philosophy and 'perceptual navigation' orientation and mobility techniques to blind persons of all ages around the world. Daniel, and some of his former students, who've now become Perceptual Navigation instructors, fight to help blind people liberate themselves from the dependency, social isolation and diminished expectations imposed on them by others.

[Photo Caption: Daniel Kish wearing a helmet, riding a bicycle while clicking to navigate his way using FlashSonar™ echolocation.]

They accomplish this by teaching these students how to hike on their own in the wilderness without need for supervision, inspiring them to climb trees to new heights, and by helping them to learn to discover the life-changing freedom that results from becoming more self-directed and independent.

In the following pages Daniel Kish shares his journey through FlashSonar™ Echolocation.

FlashSonar™- ‘Seeing’ With Your Ears by Daniel Kish MA, MA, COMS, NOMC �2

FLASHSONAR™ - ‘SEEING’ WITH YOUR EARS

By Daniel Kish MA, MA, COMS, NOMC

[Photo Caption: A sepia-toned photograph of a 5 year-old Daniel Kish standing at the top of a schoolyard slide dressed in a shirt and cardigan, long trousers and shoes.]

On my first day of first grade, the bell rings and all the kids scamper gleefully away. I amble after them, occasionally clicking my tongue, listening for the wall to my left and avoiding chairs left askew. I hear kids laughing and shouting outside through the open door. I hear the sides of the door-way in front of me, and I center myself as I pass through it to the new playground beyond. After a few steps I pause to consider the strange, chaotic environment stretching out before me. I stand on a crack that runs parallel to the building behind me, where the smooth cement turns to rough pave-ment. I wish my feet were not covered with shoes.

I have no cane; mobility isn't provided to children my age in 1972. I have been clicking to get around for as long as I can remember. Everyone says I'm really good at it, but I never think about it. It comes as naturally to me as breathing. I click and turn my head from side to side, scanning the expansive space before me, straining to penetrate the heavy curtain of commotion. The world suddenly seems bigger than anything I've ever encountered, and noisier, too--teeming with flocks of darting voices, swarms of bouncing balls, and battalions of scuffling shoes. What is around me? How do I get there? What do I do when I find it? How do I get back?

I find the noise oppressive, like a looming wall that seems almost impenetrable. But curiosity wins out, and I step cautiously forward, clicking quickly and loudly to cut through the cacophony. I follow the clear spaces, passing between clusters of bodies, keeping my distance from bouncing projectiles. From time to time, I click back over my shoulder. As long as I hear the building call back to me through the crowd, I know I can find it again. However, its presence is fading fast. The noise undu-lates all around me like a thick pall of fog enveloping my head.


The storm of noise goes on forever in all directions, and I will soon lose the building. Should I head back? A ball skitters behind me and shoes pelt after it. The sounds spur me onward. There must be grass and quiet somewhere, open space like there was on the kindergarten playground.

The pavement starts to slope slightly downward. The building is lost to me now, but I realize that if I find the slope and follow it back upward, it will point me in the right direction. The pressing din gives way to a softer hue, and my clicking inquiries find no reply, suggesting that a very big field of grass lies ahead. With relief I speed up, eager to find open quietude. My shod feet find the grass, and the heavy fog releases me.

Stimulated by the promise of adventure, I break into a run, quickly clicking to ensure that nothing stands in my way. I'm free as a bird taking joyful flight. Then, suddenly, something whispers back to me from the open expanse, and I jolt to a stop. "Hi," I venture in a bell-like treble. There is no reply.

As I scan, clicking more softly, the something quietly tells me about itself--it is taller than I am and too thin to be a person. When I reach out to touch it, I know already that it is a pole. I'm glad I found it with my ears and not my head. The pole has a small metal cap on top. I click around me, and bare-ly hear something else whispering back. Leaving the pole, I move toward this next thing as it calls to me with a similar voice, telling me that it is also a pole. I detect yet another one, and another--nine poles in a straight line.

Later I learn that this is a slalom course. In time I practiced biking by slaloming rows of trees while clicking madly.

A buzzer abruptly slices the air. I am not startled, but I freeze and raise my hands to my ears. When it finally ceases, I lower my hands to hear buildings from far away calling back to the buzzer. I detest the buzzer, but the distant voices echoing back sound like wistful music. I scan around me, clicking, but I can't hear the building over the great distance and bedlam of kids. I clap my hands with a sharp report, and something large calls back through the tangle of piping voices and scurrying shoes. I turn in that direction. The grass gives way to pavement, and as I step quickly up the slope, clicking and clapping, I hear the unmistakably broad, clear voice of a wall drawing nearer.

The crowd noise has organized itself and is not quite so assaultive. I hear kids in lines facing the wall. I don't know why they're lining up or what I'm supposed to do, and I can't tell where my class-room is. The wall sounds completely featureless, offering no information. I ask someone a question, and someone points me in the right direction.

I start to walk along the crack parallel to the wall, but kids are standing on it. I move in toward the wall, clicking and walking between it and the fronts of the lines until someone calls my name. I find the right line and, turning away from the building, I click my way along the line until it runs out of bodies, now all quiet as directed by the teacher. I lay my hands on the shoulders of the kid in front of me as I was taught--a boy I would guess by his T-shirt and short hair. As the line moves and we enter the room, I let go, clicking and scanning to avoid kids as they shuffle into their chairs. I click along the wall to my right until I near a corner. Sensing the distance from the wall in front of me, I know I'm near my desk at the end of my row. I reach to my left and find a desk with a Braillewriter on it. I take my seat, wondering how big the new playground is, and if it has a slide. I wriggle with excite-ment to find out more next recess.


Perceiving the Environment

Through our perceptual system, the brain constructs images to represent everything we experience in our conscious minds. The way we interact with the environment depends upon the quality of these images. When vision is disrupted, the brain naturally works to maintain image quality by optimizing its ability to perceive through other senses. The brain seeks to discover and explore in order to heighten the quality of meaningful information gathered through our experiences.

The inability to see with our eyes need not be disabling when the brain learns to "see" with an intact and heightened perceptual imaging system. Indeed, the visual system of the brain is recruited to as-sist in processing non-visual stimuli such as echoes and tactile information.

Our approach to long cane and FlashSonar training is thus based in perceptual science in order to ac-tivate the imaging system quickly and efficiently.

[Photo Caption: The left photo shows Daniel Kish navigating through a soccer field with tall evergreens in the back-ground using an extended long cane. The photo on the right shows Daniel and WAFTB Perceptual Navigation Instructor Brian Bushway working with 5-year-old Lucas Murray in the UK. All are working with long canes - Lucas’ cane is pro-portional for his size.]

Cane travel and other areas of perceptual training are integral to our approach to orientation and mo-bility. If I could redo anything about my childhood, it would be to have a long white cane available to me. We have developed approaches to long cane training for children at their first steps and be-fore. However, the first half of this article focuses on FlashSonar™, as we feel it is the least under-stood and most poorly implemented element in standard mobility training. I will expand more on cane training in the second half.

Both sight and hearing interpret patterns of energy reflected from surfaces in the environment. Re-flected sound energy is called echo. The use of echoes, or sonar location, can help a person perceive three characteristics of objects in the environment--location, dimension (height and width), and depth of structure (solid vs. sparse, reflective vs. absorbent).


This information allows the brain to extract a functional image of the environment for hundreds of meters, depending on the size of the elements and strength of the sonar signal. For example, a parked car, detectable from six or seven yards away, may be perceived as a large object that starts out low at one end, rises in the middle, and drops off again at the other end.

The differentiation in the height and slope pitch at either end can identify the front from the back; typically, the front will be lower, with a more gradual slope up to the roof.

Distinguishing between types of vehicles is also possible. A pickup truck, for instance, is usually tall, with a hollow sound reflecting from its bed. An SUV is usually tall and blocky overall, with a dis-tinctly blocky geometry at the rear. A tree is imaged according to relatively narrow and solid charac-teristics at the bottom, broadening in all directions and becoming more sparse toward the top.

More specific characteristics, such as size, leafiness, or height of the branches can also be deter-mined. Using this information in synergy with other auditory perceptions as well as touch and the long cane, a scene can be analyzed and imaged, allowing the listener to establish orientation and guide movement within the scene.

Passive and Active Sonar

[Caption: Illustration from Discovery Magazine entitled ‘Human Echolocation: How It Works. There is a side view of a man walking and making clicking sounds. Text under an orange arrow reads: “Clicking noise creates outgoing sound waves.” Sound waves are illustrated by vertically-curved outgoing lines that grow bigger as they strike a beam. Text reads:”Sound bounces off object. Returning echo activates the visual processing area (circled) in the brain of an experi-enced echolocator.” The brain is ‘stained’ a blue color while the visual processing in the cerebral cortex is highlighted as a golden yellow-orange area.]


There are also two types of sonar processing: passive and active. Passive sonar is the most widely used type among humans. It relies on sounds in the environment or sounds casually produced by the listener, such as footsteps or cane taps. The images thus produced are relatively vague and out of fo-cus. Passive sonar may be sufficient for detecting the presence of objects, but not for distinguishing detailed features. It's a little like hearing the murmur of other people's conversations around you. You catch bits and pieces, but the information contained therein may or may not be relevant or dis-cernible.

Active sonar involves the use of a signal that is actively produced by the listener. It allows the per-ception of specific features as well as objects at greater distances than passive sonar. It's more like engaging in active conversation with elements of the environment. One can ask specific questions of particular elements and receive clearer answers. In fact, scientists who study bats call the process of bat sonar "interrogating the environment." The bat is actively involved in querying features of the environment for specific information through an array of complex sonar calls almost as varied and strategic as a language. Only recently has it been made clear that humans can learn to do likewise.

Because of its relative precision, active sonar is used most widely in nature and in technical ap-plications. The greater accuracy of active sonar lies in the brain's ability to distinguish between the characteristics of the signal it produces from those of the returning echo. The echo is changed by the environment from which the signal bounces. These changes carry information about what the signal encounters. In our work with blind students we use the term FlashSonar because the most effective echo signals resemble a flash of sound, much like the flash of a camera. The brain captures the re-flection of the signal, much like a camera's film.

Illustration from ASU School of Life Sciences Arizona State University

[Caption: The top example shows a bat at night, emitting an active echolocation sound wave at a butterfly, with the outgoing sonar wave colored yellow, while the returning echo sound waves are colored red.

The second scenario shows a dolphin using the same tech-nique under water while approaching a school of fish.

The third scenario illustrates a submerged submarine using sonar to detect the underwater profile of a tropical island with a couple of palm trees on a sandy beach visible above the surface of the ocean.]

Perhaps the greatest advantage of FlashSonar is that an active signal can be produced very consis-tently and the brain can tune to this specific signal. Elicited echoes can easily be recognized and small details detected, even in complex or noisy environments. It's like recognizing a familiar face or voice in a crowd. The more familiar the face, the more easily it is recognized.

The characteristics of an active signal can be controlled deliberately by the user to fit the require-ments of a given situation, and the brain is primed to attend to each echo by virtue of its control over the signal.


Discerning the Signals

Tongue clicks can be used effectively to gather sonar information about the environment. The click should be sharp, similar to the snap of a finger or the pop of chewing gum. It can be very discreet, no louder than the situation dictates. Hand claps or mechanical clickers may be used as a backup, but they require the use of the hands and are not easily controlled.

[Photo Caption: Daniel Kish claps his hands together while demonstrating FlashSonar™ to sighted and blind partici-pants in an outdoor workshop put on by World Access For The Blind instructors at the 2015 No Barriers Summit. The sighted participants are wearing blindfolds and holding long navigation canes.]

Clickers are generally too loud for indoor use. They should never be sounded near the ears, and nev-er clicked more than once every two or three seconds. Cane taps can be used in a pinch, but the sig-nal is poorly aligned with the ears, and it is inconsistent as surface characteristics change. The use of cane taps in this way may encourage unnecessarily noisy or sloppy cane technique

We find that sonar signals are rarely noticed by the general public, so they do not constitute a con-cern against normalcy. They generally result in improved posture, more natural gait and head move-ment, greater confidence, and more graceful interaction with the environment.

When we teach FlashSonar™ to students, we start by sensitizing them to echo stimuli. Usually we have them detect and locate easy targets such as large plastic panels or bowls. The idea is to help the student get a sense of how echoes sound.


We call this a "hook stimulus" because it hooks the brain's attention to a stimulus that it might other-wise ignore. Once this recognition is established, we gradually move to subtler and more complex stimuli.

We use stimulus clarification to help a student perceive a stimulus that he/she may not sense, such as an open door or a pole. To clarify the stimulus, we may use a large pole or a wide doorway, or use a reverberant room beyond the doorway. Once the student can detect the clarified stimulus, we return to the original stimulus.

Our most frequent approach is stimulus comparison. We exemplify the sounds of environmental characteristics by using A-B comparisons wherever possible. For example, solid vs. sparse may be shown by comparing a fence near a wall. A high wall could be found near a low wall, or a tree near a pole, or a large alcove near a smaller one. We try to locate training environments that are rich with stimulus variation. The characteristics of almost any object or feature can be better understood when compared to something distinctly different.

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[Photo Caption: left photo shows Daniel Kish standing on a green lawn behind a partially sighted teenaged boy who is wearing a black-out mask, in order to better focus on interpreting the echoes from his clicking. Daniel holds a hardcover book on the right side of the students head as the student clicks from left to right to find the book. In the right photo, Daniel stands behind the same student and other older students as they click towards a picket fence mounted on a con-crete ledge with a flower garden behind it.]

Stimulus association is the conceptual version of stimulus comparison. Instead of comparing ele-ments in the environment, we are comparing real elements to those in our minds by drawing upon mental references. For example, when facing a hedge, a student might say, "It sounds solid.”

I might reply, "As solid as the wall to your house?” "No, not that solid," she might say. "As sparse as the fence of your yard?" "No, more solid than that," she might answer. Now we have a range of relativity to work with. "Does it remind you of anything near your house, maybe in the side yard?" "Bushes?" she might query.


"What seems different from those bushes?" "These are sort of flat like a fence.”

If she still can't put words to what she is perceiving, we tell her what the object actually is: a hedge.

Ultimately, we have students verify what they hear by touching and exploring. We also encourage precision interaction with the environment. For instance, we might have a student practice walking through a doorway without touching, with the door closed more and more to narrow the gap, or hav-ing a student locate the exact position of a thin pole, and reach out to touch it without fishing for it.

We also work on maintaining orientation and connectedness with surfaces in complex spaces. A good example of this is moving diagonally from one corner to another across a very large room, like an auditorium or gym. They learn to hear the corner opening up behind them, while closing in before them, and keeping their line between the two.

The world is not made of squares and right angles, but of angles and curves. This exercise helps stimulate the ability to process nonlinear space. It is surprisingly difficult for many students, but sur-prisingly easy for others. Once this task is mastered, we place obstacles to be negotiated while still maintaining orientation.

Freedom to Explore

Ultimately, we support students to be able to orient themselves and travel confidently through any space, familiar or not. We practice finding and establishing the relative locations of objects and refer-ence points in a complex environment, such as a park or college campus. The students walk through the area, keeping track of their location with respect to things they can hear and echolocate. They are discouraged from staying on paths, but urged to venture across open spaces. We find and map objects and features until the space is learned. Active echolocation makes this process go much faster.

[Photo Caption: Left photo shows a blonde-haired girl standing and facing a road in the countryside lined with trees and people in the distance. Text reads: The Road Lies Ahead – a joint navigation program of Blind Vision Inc. and World Ac-cess For The Blind. The second photo shows Daniel Kish tracing with his hands a 3-D topographic map of the 300 acre grounds housing the program.]


[Photo Caption: photo from The Road Lies Ahead camp shows Daniel flanked by students and colleagues holding long canes and water pistols in a lush summer-green forest.]

The most important thing is to allow and encourage blind children to explore their environment without constantly supervising their every move or structuring all of their activities. It is important that they often direct their own movements, not relying strictly on direction from others. The occa-sional hint is nice, but spoon-feeding our kids all the answers is debilitating; it breaks down the per-ceptual system.

We must remember that the brain is like a muscle. It only gets stronger with self-directed exercise. The earlier this happens in a child's life, the more comfortable and friendly will the child's relation-ship become with the environment.

The mother of a boy we have worked with wrote to us about her son's progress. I quote from her let-ter: "My youngest son, Justin, totally blind, is five ... we introduced Justin to a white cane when he was eighteen months old, ... [and] he ... processes the information he gains from it very effectively. Justin is a very active, outgoing fellow who loves socializing and sports of any kind. ... the work [Daniel] has done with Justin has had tremendous results. ...

Walls are easy for Justin to hear. He has moved on to identify parked cars, store displays, other solid objects like newspaper boxes, bushes, and more, all with the click of his tongue. ... If I ask Justin to go and find a ... solid object that doesn't make noise, he will click his tongue and ... set off in that di-rection. As he nears it, he will actually pick up speed and become more confident. ... He can then stop short of it. ... The delight on his face when ... he discovers what he has found is unparalleled.”


FlashSonar™ Echolocation and The Integration of Long-Cane Perceptual Mobility Training

[Photo Caption: Daniel Kish instructs blind and sighted students in long cane technique. Text reads: Many Orientation and Mobility instructors are learning more about the benefits of combining FlashSonar™ Echolocation with long cane training. Photo by Steve Broxterman.]

You may have learned about Daniel Kish and the work of World Access For The Blind from a TV documentary, newspaper feature online or offline, often seen in various media programs cycling, climbing rock walls, or setting Guinness Book of World Records records by navigating an obstacle course on a bicycle using FlashSonar™.

Long-cane training, from the earliest possible age is an integral part of the organization’s philosophy. It’s Daniel’s passionate belief that any child who is blind from the early years should learn to use a long cane as soon as they can grasp it.

To date, Daniel and his instructors have worked with over 1,000 blind students of all ages and back-grounds in nearly 40 countries. Among these, Daniel has worked with over 73 children in the U.K., at least 20 of them under the age of six and more than a dozen under the age of four. He has met many parents desperate to help their young children, but unable to find the support they want in their local area.

One of the common effects of withholding perception-based cane training from very young blind children is that when they finally begin using a cane, they may not adopt it as a natural perceptual extension, and don’t fully buy into self-direction. They are the kids who leave their canes folded up, are routinely guided, and won’t explore. A perception-based approach to early cane training activates self direction and imaging when the brain is most receptive and responsive.”

Daniel has also met other parents with older children, who say they wish they had known of his ap-proach sooner.


Is Seeing a Right or a Privilege?

Daniel Kish says, “I am often asked, “What is the right age for a child to learn the cane?” I reply, “When do children naturally start learning to see?” “When they’re born,” they insist. “But everyone knows how much trouble vision can cause little kids,” I argue. “Wouldn’t kids be so much easier to manage without all the running around and getting into things they’re not ready for?

Wouldn’t it be better to blindfold kids until they’re seven or eight when they can see more responsi-bly and effectively? Then, we could teach them strategically through a carefully structured system how to see properly, without all the haphazard risks of trial and error?” Somehow, I’ve not been able to convince anyone.

World Access For The Blind advocates introducing the cane as young as early infancy, because, even before ambulation occurs, the cane can become an extension of reach, and, therefore, help to catalyze spatial awareness. Infants at or before the crawling stage can learn to use the cane as a spatial probe, which in turn can motivate greater movement and interest in self-directed discovery.

[Photo Caption: Daniel provides FlashSonar™ and long cane training to Lucas Murray, his first student in England. Lucas’ little sister, sighted, tags along playing with her own cane.]

The grasping reflex of infants is inevitable, and can be capitalized upon for effective cane use even at extremely early ages. We have also observed that the full length cane, used as a perceptual extension, appears to provide the perceptual system with a third point of reference that seems to im-prove balance, even for toddlers just learning to walk.


World Access For The Blind instructors teach what Daniel Kish calls “perceptual mobility training”. He defines this as: “Engaging the whole brain in a developmentally natural manner that activates the perceptual imaging system by fostering self directed freedom of discovery. Rather than trying to push a contrived set of skills into the student, we stimulate the imaging system to manifest skills as they are needed. It is not a collection of skills that make perception happen; it is perception that compels skills to develop.

The Perceptual Imaging System

“Perception occurs in two stages – awareness and imaging. Awareness simply refers to the stimulus knowledge that something is present to the senses. Imaging occurs when this awareness takes on form and substance in a person’s mind. An image doesn’t need to be visual; it can be tactile or audi-tory as well. For example, a young boy moving his cane touched my shoe and said, ‘I just touched someone’s shoe.’ It is one thing to know that your cane has touched something, but something about the boy’s perception of the sensation told him, not just that he’d touched something, but that it was a shoe. The brain can build images drawn from any sensory input, and any experience.”

Cane Perception For Toddlers

“Cane perception” refers to a type of cane and style of usage that best activates the imaging system to connect the child to the environment sufficiently to allow graceful, confident movement. Now, the cane usage of a toddler may not look pretty, but it quickly becomes effective when properly support-ed. This is easily done with a perception-based approach. Young children who have been dependency trained to rely on guidance or trailing a hand on surfaces may be very reluctant to take their first steps into open space. If the child is afraid, one way to ease the transition is to have the parent hold an adult-sized cane, while the child holds the shaft nearer the tip.

Choosing A Cane For A Small Child

There are as many types of canes and ways to use them as there are body types and ways of moving. These are general guidelines based on over 20 years work with many hundreds of students of every type in over 40 countries, and my expertise in perceptual development. I, and other instructors adopt-ing this approach, have found that it successfully activates the brain’s recognition and acceptance of the cane as a natural perceptual extension.

We use what I call a perception cane, which has the following qualities:

Full length A certain distance of perception is needed to activate the imaging system. For this the cane should be about as long as the child is tall. Sighted people use their eyes to scan several steps ahead. A blind child, who has shorter arms and may move more quickly and erratically than an adult, will need a long enough cane to perceive advance information about the way ahead. This allows time for the brain to receive and process all the information it needs to make decisions on moving around.

Lightweight The cane is a delicate instrument, like an antenna, and should be as light as possible. In order to be recognized and accepted by the brain as a natural perceptual extension, the cane should not be cum-bersome or awkward. I do not usually recommend roller tips or other heavy tips. A big tip may seem easier, but it can only go so far toward covering up technique that lacks finesse


Conductivity As a perceptual extension, the cane should convey as much information as possible with as much ease as possible. For children I generally recommend rigid, non-folding canes. They are generally lighter, sturdier, and more conductive. They are also less likely to lead to “folded cane syndrome” in which the cane spends more time folded and stowed away than actually in use. I also do not general-ly recommend foam cane grips, as these tend to insulate the hand from sensations.

The cane may be regarded, not so much as a probe or shield, but as an integrated extension of per-ception, much as is touch or vision. It should access information naturally to allow an unconscious flow of movement without much need to think about skills or techniques.

We hardly think about using our hands to put on our clothes, or our eyes to walk or catch a ball. Likewise, the cane should integrate seamlessly into the perceptual process. For this to happen, use of the cane should be fostered in much the same way as the use of our other senses.

For more information on Perception Cane Navigation, including proper gripping techniques, please contact [email protected] .

[Photo Caption: Front page of the Los Angeles Times, July, 2015 edition, featuring a cover story on the work of Daniel Kish and his Perceptual Navigation Instructors at World Access For The Blind. The headline reads: “For blind, the world appears with a click.” A photo shows 40 year-old blind student Ryo Hirosawa taking a selfie as he works with in-structor Brian Bushway in long cane technique and FlashSonar™ Echolocation. Ryo says his training from the instruc-tors at World Access For The Blind has changed his life and opened up a whole new world of possibilities and freedoms that weren’t available to him previously in Japan.]


mailto:[email protected]

ADDENDUM: Breaking News: Blind Girl Banned From Using Long Cane At School

[Photo Caption: Banner from abled.com shows a photo from the Bristol Post of 7 year-old Lily-Grace Hooper being held help by her mother Kristy outside the gates of Hambrook Primary School in Bristol, England. Kristy is also holding her daughters long white navigation cane. The banner text reads: AbledRights: Bristol-UK: Blind girl told white cane is “too risky” for school.]

It is a story that ‘went viral’ very quickly on the Internet in November, 2015. A young blind girl is banned from using her white navigation cane at school, because it may be a risk to other students and teachers, according to a ‘health and safety’ risk assessment.

The originating article in the Bristol Post featured the headline “Health And Safety Gone Mad” as it chronicled the story of 7 year-old Lily Grace Hooper who suffered a stroke when she as just four days old that left her virtually blind. As the paper reports, “A risk assessment by Gary Learmonth from Sensory Support Service – done on behalf of the school – said the cane caused a ‘high risk’ to other people around Lily-Grace, and that she should instead have full adult support “100 per cent” at all times.

But her furious mother, Kristy, is worried her daughter will become to dependent on having someone show her around said having a helper following her around will set her daughter apart from the rest of the pupils.” At last report, the situation had reached a stalemate with the school refusing to budge.

Perhaps no one is better qualified to weigh-in and provide professional advice to both sides in the debate over Lily-Grace’s’s right to use a long navigation cane in school than Daniel Kish, President of World Access For The Blind. Daniel is considered by many to be the leading authority in the world on FlashSonar™ echolocation and long-cane navigation. He call’s it ‘Perception Cane Train-ing’ and has authored papers on the evolving evidence that human perception, and the brain’s ability to adapt, even in infancy, are the most important points to factor-in when assessing Orientation & Mobility options for blind infants and children.

Daniel expands on this in the following Addendum to this paper.


http://abled.com

The Damage Being Done By Outdated ‘Health and Safety’ Guidelines in the U.K., and Why The Ban on Lily-Grace Hooper’s Cane is a Human Rights Violation

By Daniel Kish MA, MA, COMS, NOMC

It is sometimes supposed that blind children may cause harm or inconvenience to others by possibly tripping other children with their cane, or otherwise mis-use the cane in a fashion that could hurt oth-ers. This view is presumptuous, discriminatory, and disrespectful.

It is presumptuous in the sense that it appears to be unfounded - a hypothetical concern with little or no factual basis. From the very young children who have been using their canes in public places for decades, there are no data, anecdotal or otherwise, of reports pouring in about people tripping over their canes, or their canes becoming deadly weapons. Such cases, if they exist, are no more than occasional and isolated incidents. They by no means form a trend that warrants undue concern.

This view is discriminatory in the sense that, while it is certainly possible for a child to trip over a cane, and for a blind child occasionally to mis-use his cane, it is also possible for any child to trip over another child's backpack, or for a child to get hit by a ball, or for a child to fall over anything at any time. Why do we single out the blind child as a possible source of harm? To do so is clearly and directly discriminatory.

At the risk of sounding militant, who's getting in whose way?

It is disrespectful in the sense that, in most developed countries, blind children have the same human rights to enjoy self-directed movement and access to their environment with the same freedom and personal dignity that sighted people enjoy.

It is conventional to consider access to the environment by one's own perceptual abilities and self direction to be an inalienable right for everyone.

In the U.S., we call this "least restricted environment".

To the extent that a blind person's body and cane are means for perceiving and accessing the envi-ronment as surely as one's eyes, then these means are sacrosanct and not to be restricted or withheld.

We would never think of restricting a sighted child's use of his vision, because he used his vision to cause trouble, such as by cheating off another child's paper, or running away from school, or hitting another child. Forcing a child under blindfold for such offenses would be considered the height of abuse, and would engender public outrage.

Why are such actions against blind children common-place, and considered acceptable and somehow justifiable?

Stories abound of blind children being refused the right to use their canes in schools, with blindness professionals often supporting these misguided policies. To support these policies is to deny the basic rights of the blind child, and to support presumptuous, discriminatory, and disrespectful policies. Moreover, to do so sends a message to our blind students to accept and resign themselves to pre-sumptuous, discriminatory, and disrespectful perspectives maintained against them. One U.K. pro-fessional refers to this as "structured disempowerment”.


In any event, according to U.K.'s own human rights legislation, such policies are clearly illegal and can be dismissed by any parents who wish to do so.

Another example of this ‘structured disempowerment’ is the policy of some organizations to with-hold cane training until a blind child reaches the age of seven or above. This is likely to cause long-term damage to the child’s mobility and independence and is what I call ‘dependency training’ be-cause it fosters dependency at an age when a child should be achieving self-direction.

A perception-based approach to early cane training appears to activate self-direction and imaging when the brain is most receptive and responsive. World Access For The Blind (WAFTB) regards the long cane, not so much as a tool for probing or shielding, but more importantly as an integrated ex-tension of perception. Jacobson (1993) states that the shaft and tip of the cane become an extension of the user’s hands and fingers like an extension to our own tactile system.

Visually impaired individuals hardly think about using their hands to read Braille or put on their clothes; likewise, the cane should integrate seamlessly into the perceptual process as a delicately sen-sitive instrument of perception. Blind toddlers can learn to use a cane to get around safely and effi-ciently with self direction without need for constant guidance or environmental modifications. The WAFTB team has taught this over and over and has coached parents to teach it to their children.

As I wrote earlier in this paper, WAFTB advocates introducing the cane even as young as early in-fancy, as even before ambulation occurs, the cane can become an extension of reach, and therefore help to catalyze spatial awareness. Infants at or before the crawling stage can learn to use the cane as a spatial probe, which in turn can motivate greater movement and interest in self-directed discovery.

The grasping reflex of infants is inevitable, and can be capitalized upon for effective cane use even at extremely early ages. We have also observed that the full length cane, used as a perceptual extension as described above, appears to provide the perceptual system with a third point of reference that seems to improve balance, even for toddlers just learning to walk.

There are many ways to ensure safe and effective use of the cane in public places without restricting a child's right to freedom of access. Help to support parents in their ability to advocate for their own child by being sure they have access to information, and that they can articulate their needs and con-cerns effectively about their children. Many parents are intimidated by professionals and administra-tive policies. But, very often the law is on their side. They just need to know that, and be willing to step forward with this knowledge on behalf of their children.

Let me also address the risk assessment done in the case of 7 year-old Lily-Grace Hooper in England which recommended she should not use her can, and be relegated to “full adult support 100% of the time”. The implications of this are misunderstood from a developmental perspective. It threatens the integrity of self-directed freedom by eroding the perceptual system. Guiding is easy - too easy - at least in the short term.

Overuse of a human guide can lead to passive behavior on behalf of the student and can teach the blind student that the functioning of blind people is best facilitated by sighted people, essentially rel-egating the social role of a blind person to a passive one. Human guiding can cause someone to be whisked through the environment without the opportunity to engage what passes by or to take their own initiative to discover.


Some blind people refer to human guidance as ‘hitching a ride’ due to the impassive nature of the experience for them while being guided., and its over-use prevents the children from gaining self-directed confidence and from improving their independent mobility, leaving them overly-dependent on others.

Rather than focus on teaching everyone how to guide, student efficacy is quickly and dramatically improved when we focus attention on teaching how not to guide. Teach methods to allow a student to walk with someone or with a group without a need to hold on. Develop approaches to increase walk-ing speed and improve gait pattern.

Work on using auditory capacities to monitor where people are around them, and walk with them as people naturally walk together. This process of self guidance is thus put in the hands of the blind stu-dent rather than kept in the hands of others deemed responsible for the student. The more students can conduct themselves quickly and competently, the less others will feel the need to guide. The more the student is permitted, encouraged, and supported to guide himself, the more he will develop and hone his capacity to self navigate.

Institutional Misuse of Legislation

Health and safety in the U.K. and other countries that have adopted that model is being abused or mis-used institutionally to limit and restrict many people from activities, and blind people are particularly vulnerable to these restrictions. However, I have it on good authority from U.K. lawyers that this is not intended in the spirit of the legislation.

Actually, the legislation was intended to expand participation, not limit it. The risk assessment was not intended to be used to say why someone can't participate in an activity, but rather to analyze and provide measures to facilitate greater participation. Unfortunately, many blind children are subject to institutional misuse of legislation, which by U.K. civil rights legislation would be considered discriminatory, and an infringement of human rights, which are intended to extend to blind people and children as equal citizens.

The Health and Safety regulatory committee are apparently well-aware that abuses are being perpetrated under the guise of health and safety, and have provided a forum for the public to air their complaints.

The Health and Safety Executive is here: http://www.hse.gov.uk/

Here, there is a BBC article that asks the public to challenge these rulings: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14634289

In conclusion regarding the case of Lily-Grace Hooper, let me reiterate that the U.K.'s own human rights legislation makes it clear that the actions of Hambrook Primary School in banning the child’s long navigation cane are clearly illegal and I encourage her parents to pursue the appropriate action to challenge the ban.

As I have said many times, I regard perception as a sovereign right, not to be infringed upon because it may seem inconvenient.


http://www.hse.gov.uk/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14634289

To LEARN more about Daniel Kish & World Access For The Blind:http://worldaccessfortheblind.org | https://www.facebook.com/worldaccessfortheblind?ref=hl

To DONATE to support the work of Daniel Kish and his Team with a tax-deductible contribu-tion: http://www.worldaccessfortheblind.org/donate

To SEE and HEAR Daniel Kish speak at TED2015:https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kish_how_i_use_sonar_to_navigate_the_world?language=en

To SEE their teachings in action and meet their student Ryo Hirosawa from Japan:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2ttl_KMIWaZEQ_f6z4rIVA To READ more about Ryo Hirosawa & the freedom he learned from World Access For The Blind:http://www.latimes.com/local/great-reads/la-me-c1-blind-clicking-20150713-story.html#page=1


http://worldaccessfortheblind.org

https://www.facebook.com/worldaccessfortheblind?ref=hl

http://www.worldaccessfortheblind.org/donate

https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kish_how_i_use_sonar_to_navigate_the_world?language=en

https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kish_how_i_use_sonar_to_navigate_the_world?language=en

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2ttl_KMIWaZEQ_f6z4rIVA

http://www.latimes.com/local/great-reads/la-me-c1-blind-clicking-20150713-story.html#page=1

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