Professor Gordon N Dutton MD FRCS FRCOphth
Consultant Ophthalmologist
Emeritus Professor of Visual Science, Glasgow Caledonian University
Honorary Senior Research Fellow, University of Glasgow
Contact Details:
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Milngavie
Glasgow
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Knowledge of Mr Daniel Kish
I have been a Consultant Pediatric Ophthalmologist at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow for over 20 years. My interests can be identified under Dutton GN, on Pub Med (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed).
I first met Daniel Kish four years ago, when our local Society for the Blind in Glasgow, ‘Visibility’ (http://www.visibility.org.uk/) invited him to train their staff in the technique of Echolocation, to enable them to offer training to blind children and young people in the area. This led to a number of children under my care receiving training. Since that time he has made a number of follow-up visits to Glasgow.
I have had the privilege of getting to know Daniel both professionally and as a friend. He has the unique experience of not only discovering the technique of echolocation as a means of guidance of movement and localisation, and identification of objects, but also defining this skill and conveying it to others both in the USA and internationally.
It was obvious when I first met him, that Daniel’s skill in echolocation is extraordinary. However, it was clearly important to provide scientific validation of his skills. To this end I arranged an introduction to Professor Mel Goodale and his team in London Ontario, who have published the paper concerning their findings a few weeks ago. This can be accessed via Pub Med. (Thaler L , Arnott SR , Goodale MA . Neural correlates of natural human echolocation in early and late blind echolocation experts. PLoS One. 2011;6(5):e20162. Epub 2011 May 25. Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada.) In brief summary, Daniel’s echolocation is remarkably accurate and the echoes of the clicking sounds, which he generates, are processed in his visual brain.
Daniel has uniquely and single-handedly established a wide-ranging form of training of mobility for young people, both in the USA and internationally. He is an ardent exponent of his specialty and has single-handedly been responsible for giving new hope for many blind people worldwide.