By
Daniel Kish, M.A., M.A., COMS, NOMC
Copyright 2013
By
World Access for the Blind
[This document incorporates materials from a document
written by Daniel Kish and Hannah Bleier, M.A., COMS.
Although this program in practice has been found very successful, the
documentation of this program is still under development. Please forgive the rough
edges.]
I. LETTER FROM A PARENT
II. ABOUT THIS PROGRAM:
A. Why
the term FlashSonar?
B. This
program is not yet complete.
C. This
program is based loosely on sequenced skills development.
D. This
program is in no way intended to constitute a complete set of activities or
skills
E.
These exercises and protocols are intended to activate the brain's auditory
imaging process.
III. PERCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT CONSIDERATIONS
IV.
FLASH-SONAR CONSIDERATIONS
A.
Introduction:
B.
Sonar as a Language
C.
Feature and Scene Analysis
1.
Location
2.
Dimension
3.
Depth of structure
D. What
is Detectable?
1.
Target Distinction
2.
Environmental Variables
3.
Perceptual Variables
E.
Applications of sonar: The applicability
of sonar falls into two major categories - orientation and targeting sonar.
V. SONAR SIGNALING
A.
Introduction: There are two kinds of sonar - passive and active.
B.
Social appropriateness of clicking
C. The
active sonar call is the basis of the FlashSonar
approach.
D.
Optimization of call
E.
Types of Tongue Clicks
F.
Students who use echoes are often unaware that they are doing so.
G.
Handheld clickers
H.
Signals for very beginning exercises
VI. MATERIALS YOU MAY NEED
VII. INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES.
A.
Neural Activation of External Mapping.
B.
Observation
C. Tips
for Teaching Tongue clicks
D. We
believe the brain learns to see by using systematic stimulus differentiation.
E.
Stimulus Sensitization: helping students to "sensitize" to subtle
stimuli
1.
Noticing Strong Echoes
2.
Bottle exercises
3.
The phase effect
4.
Stimulus Target Presentation
a.
Sample Exercises
b.
Special Considerations
F.
Stimulus Clarification: When students are unable to register or describe a
stimulus consistently, it may be that the stimulus needs to be clarified.
1.
Representation
2.
Intensification
3.
Elumination
G.
Stimulus Comparison: It may help to compare directly one stimulus with another.
H.
Stimulus Association: the conceptual version of stimulus comparison.
I.
Stimulus Shift: is used by psycho-physicists to teach a student to register and
respond to one stimulus by substituting a more powerful stimulus, then fading
that stimulus gradually so that perception of the subtler stimulus builds
J.
Attention Stabilization
VIII. ESTABLISHING ORIENTATION RELATIVE TO POINTS OF
REFERENCE
A.
Maintaining various facing relative to a flat surface
B.
Orienting to and moving toward an object
C.
Alcove and interior corner location
D.
Tracking Course Boundaries
E. Centering
F.
Circling
IX. NEGOTIATING OBSTACLES
X. IDENTIFICATION OF FEATURES AND ELEMENTS
XI. ENVIRONMENTAL LAYERING / SCENE ANALYSIS
XII. DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENTAL INTERACTION (self
orientation)
A.
Street crossing
B.
Crossing a parking lot
C. Self Orientation
XIII. OVER THE TOP EXERCISES
XIV. GROUP ACTIVITIES
XV. SOME INSTRUCTIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
A. Cane
users
B.
Partial Vision
1.
Diffused Occlusion
2.
A World of Color
3.
Occlude the Instructor
4.
Darkened Environments
C.
Recently blind Adults
D.
Congenitally blind kids
1.
Directed Reaching
2.
Walking and Cruising
3.
Infant Scaffording
E.
Working with very young children
1.
Find the box
2. Stimulate the child's interest in container
play. XVI. Self Exercises for Stimulating the Sonar Perception
3. Auditory Space Recognition.
4. Stimulate interest in crawling into or under
things.
5.
Hide and seek.
6.
Audified Ball play.
7.
Explorer.
8.
Counting.
9.
One student liked to ice skate.
XVI. SELF EXERCISES FOR STIMULATING SONAR PERCEPTION
Before we begin, we'd like to present an excerpt from a
letter submitted to a blind people's listserve by a
parent whose young son received services from us. Among other things, this
letter speaks to the ease and acceptance of using FlashSonar.
This letter is presented in its entirety at:
www.worldaccessfortheblind.org/node/136
"My youngest son, Justin, totally blind, is five ... we
introduced Justin to a white cane when he was 18 months old,
... 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 direction. 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. ... The other day
my husband asked Justin to tell him when the type of fence changed along the
street ... Clicking his tongue, Justin could tell him when the fence changed
from brick to wrought iron ...
"we had already seen Justin
using echolocation on his own as a toddler. ... I'm not sure how much Justin
knew what he was doing, or how much further he would have went with it. I know
that I have heard a lot of blind adults say that they use echolocation to some degree, ... But in Justin's case, with structured training
his potential in this area is being drawn out and he is learning to use
echolocation more effectively than he would have otherwise. ...
"We, like any parents, want the best for our son. We
want him to be as independent and free as he can be. To give him that, we want
him to have access to all the options, so that he knows what is possible and
can make his own choices. ... Echolocation training is most definitely helping
to accomplish that goal. ... I strive to give my child access to all of the
resources I can to help him become who he wants to be. This is one such resource.
...
"10 years ago it was unheard of to put a cane in the
hand of a toddler. Our toddler is one little boy who has benefited hugely from
... one at such a young age. How many people ten years ago, and even now for
that matter, would have told me not to give my son a cane? Is the same thing
true to some extent of echolocation? Or are we open-minded enough to explore
the idea deeply enough to see if, just maybe, this is a relatively untapped
area with tremendous potential? ...
"probably my greatest strength
with my son is my ability to teach him social skills. I have a very strong
interest in this area, and it shows in who Justin is becoming. He is extremely
well spoken, ... very outgoing, confident, and
well-liked by his friends and classmates. ... a tongue
click ... is hardly noticeable. In fact, unless you were listening specifically
for it, I don't know that you would notice it. Ok, well if you are blind you
almost surely would, but I am commenting as a sighted person. it is hardly noticeable at all. ... the
tongue click in no way resembles a blindism or
mannerism. ... Today Justin does not exhibit any mannerisms ... here is
something positive that it does do. It keeps the head up nicely, because when
you click to scan your environment you lift your head up instead of hanging it down ....
"what does draw people's
attention to my son is his cane, more than anything else. Since he first
started using it at 18 months, people tend to watch us wherever we go. ... His
cane by far draws more attention than a tongue click ever would. ... that is the reality of it from our own experience. ...
Tricia"
We will add that Justin began losing his hearing bilaterally
by the age of six. He has been aided in
both ears ever since. He is 13 years old at the time of this writing. Justin
has applied focused training in FlashSonar and other
perceptual mobility skills to develop his spatial process to a high degree
despite his hearing impairment. Moreover, we feel and Justin would concur, that
focused training in FlashSonar has resulted in a
generalized improvement across a wide range of auditory functioning. For
instance, Justin's complex, lighted intersection crossing abilities are on or
above par relative to his age peers without hearing impairment. Given his
hearing impairment especially, Justin most certainly evidences benefit from the
use of a focused tongue click to provide him with enhanced imaging. Without it,
the resulting echo intensity just isn't consistently strong enough for him to
construct sufficiently detailed and robust images.
A. Why
the term FlashSonar?
Many echolocaters have learned to use echoes to advantage, and
many instructors have developed some ways of teaching echo skills. However, we
have found that the application and instruction of echolocation typically falls
short of its actual capacity. Echolocation has come to be identified with
relatively rudimentary abilities, such as detecting openings, building lines,
sizes and maybe shapes of rooms, whether we're walking straight along a
pathway, whether something is over head, and whether an object might be in our
way. However, the actual potential of echolocation ranges far beyond this, and
we are consistently able to achieve these advanced results through our method of
instruction as outlined in this program. Thus, we have coined the term FlashSonar to distinguish our approach, and the broad
purposes to which it can be applied, such as auditory scene analysis,
identification and recognition of complex environmental features, perception of
small objects and fine details, and high speed movement (running or biking
speeds).
The use
of sonar can be consistently fostered to a far greater degree than has been
traditionally supposed or consistently demonstrated. Some have expressed that
only a select few can learn the skill to a heightened capacity, but we have
found this to be untrue. We have found notable success with most students of
all ages and backgrounds including students with autism, hearing loss, and
cognitive impairments. We have also successfully taught very young toddlers.
What is sometimes taught and often used is only preliminary to the more
advanced degree, scope, and complexity of perception that echolocation can
afford.
Furthermore,
no systematic, comprehensive training programs have been documented to our
knowledge that support and facilitate the development of this valuable way of
seeing.
The
term "FlashSonar" differentiates the
strategic use of advanced, active sonar from the more commonly applied forms of
echolocation. This was partly inspired by the fact that, in all of nature,
humans are the only animals to our knowledge that tend to rely on more passive
or incidental forms of sonar. Active sonar, which is about to be discussed, is
believed to be the standard form of application throughout nature, and in
almost all technical applications.
Another
issue with regard to the focused development and use of FlashSonar
concerns the activation of the imaging system in the brain. We now know that
active echolocation by use of an active signal can reliably elicit bold images
in the brain that are closely analogous to visual images. While we do not yet
know all of the aspects of how this process works, we do know that the brain
requires a certain strength of stimulus in order to elicit enough neural
impulses to produce a conscious stimulus. It is our observation from work with
hundreds of students and thousands of instructors, including some former
students of NOMC'S and a few NOMC instructors, that a
lack of focused development in active echolocation does not appear to be
sufficient to activate the imaging system to the degree that is possible. This
is a supposition based largely on behavioral evidence.
B. This
program is not yet complete.
It is
still evolving, but it provides a firm foundation in facilitating the
perceptual adaptation process with regard to FlashSonar.
C. This
program is based loosely on sequenced skills development.
In-keeping
with a modern developmental psychology perspective, we don't fully subscribe to
the sequenced approach. While rough developmental milestones and sequences may
exist, they are heavily dependent on personal, social, and environmental
factors. This is particularly true for blind individuals whose developmental
sequencing is even looser than that of the general population. This is
especially true when considering that a much higher percentage of the blind
population is faced with the challenge of additional involvements. Given this,
we have found that the application of a sequenced skills curriculum often
misses the mark. We would say that development and learning are only partly
driven by developmental sequences that may be more or less hard wired, and also
largely driven by what we may call "salience." We are driven to learn
and grow by what is salient to our interest, survival, and attainment of
resources. For example, children understand fractions long before they are
formally taught the arithmetic operations as demonstrated by their awareness of
equity when it comes to cutting pie and pizza. They often understand money long
before they are able to do percents, and all of us
understand time (base 12 or base 24) before we are even introduced to the
concept of bases. Blind children are often observed to excel well beyond their
sighted peers at certain skills, such as swimming, climbing, music,
roughhousing, and auditory processing, and research has shown them to develop
abstract language well ahead of "schedule," as these various skills
may be more salient to their style of exploring and understanding the world.
Thus, we have been unable to develop a step by step, sequenced curriculum that
we feel properly supports the perceptual adaptation process. This program is
based more on salience than sequence. The instructor should be warned not to
try to impose this curriculum on a student in a sequenced, prescripted
manner, but should first strive to understand the student's perceptual and
environmental interaction style.
The key
above all, is to maintain a student's interest in the tasks, and motivation to
learn. Some students may seem averse to self directed
travel, but it is vital that this aversion be replaced by a desire to explore
and discover, even if assisted to do so. Helping the student maintain interest
and motivation is worth far more than the most carefully designed hierarchy of
tasks. In our experience, once the student's interest is lost it doesn't much
matter what we do.
D. This
program is in no way intended to constitute a complete set of activities or
skills.
The
activities included are selected to represent broadly the principal types of
interactions that people may have with the environment. They are also intended
to provide focused opportunities to practice developing certain specific
skills. These activities must be adjusted or modified according to student need
and environmental determinants. It will also be necessary to add other
activities according to need. The sequence suggested here is only a very
general guide, and will not apply to every student in all situations. In fact,
it really should not be thought of as a "sequence." However, generally
speaking, it is easier to learn to perceive one target before many targets,
simple targets before complex targets, and targets from a stationary
perspective before moving. Nonetheless, there are notable exceptions. Some
students, for instance, can't make head or tales out of the simple panel
exercises before they've been able to experience it walking around in the real
environment.
You can
make a sonar exercise out of just about any activity. Many kids love to play
around with a tetherball. We would have them find tetherball poles with the
incentive that one of the poles had a tetherball. They loved it. Other times it
was "take me to the things you like to play on." These might be
monkey bars, swings, the slide, a merry-go-round, etc., that they were encouraged
to find with FlashSonar. While it is often surprising
what blind kids can do and learn, we were also surprised by what our students
didn't know, like "how do you get to the jungle-gym from the slide."
Blind kids who just follow the sighted kids all the time may not know. With one
kid, we would pick him up and spin him around in a toy airplane to get him
totally disoriented. He had a blast. Then we would practice finding the slide
from where he was set down. He loved it!
E.
These exercises and protocols are intended to activate the brain's auditory
imaging process.
It's
analogous to the way we teach anything in a discovery model. We present the
stimulus to the student in such a way the student can fully appreciate it.
Then, once the stimulus is understood, we facilitate a student's perceptual and
interactive discovery of subtler and more complex stimuli. We believe that the
key to activating the greatest adaptation to the perception and use of these
stimuli lies in self directed exposure to quality
stimuli in representative environments and situations. That's really what this
program is all about.
The ability to direct our interactions with the environment
is connected to the perceptual imaging system. The brain creates images through
the perceptual system to represent everything we experience. The quality of
these images impacts how we interact with the environment. The brain uses
perception to gather information which feeds comprehension, which further
improves our interaction.
Perception lies at the center of our ability to direct
ourselves toward achievement. Other processes, such as comprehension,
psychology, and mutual social engagement, are critical, but information
supports the development and utility of all other neural mechanisms underlying self direction. Without information about the world, what
is their
to comprehend, who is their to engage socially
and by what means, and with whom and how do we relate psychologically? We
establish and execute intent by drawing meaning from what our senses register.
The more information we can access, the more adaptive and more varied is our
interaction with the world.
Accordingly humans have developed integrated, adaptive brain
function that anticipates information through the perceptual process in two
principal modes relative to movement - referencing and preview. Referencing
refers to recognizing and discriminating elements around us which allows us to
set a physical goal toward which movement can be directed, and to maintain
orientation with respect to surrounding elements. Preview refers to awareness
of elements and their layout in advance of our position. This allows us to
direct our course efficiently, safely, and gracefully. Both these modes of
gathering information can be divided into near, intermediate, and far.
We use this information about what lies ahead and around us
to govern interaction. Without this
information, the purposeful flow of movement is disrupted. We struggle to apply
other processes to interact with the environment in a manner that is adaptive
and mutually meaningful to self and others. Broadly speaking, this usually
disrupts the development of grace and confidence to direct ourselves toward
achievement.
Neural development depends largely on self
directed discovery based interaction with our environment. Directing our
own interactions, rather than passively responding to others' directives,
engages the nervous system most completely; it matures best by understanding
its relationship to the world through self initiated,
self directed exploration. A strong perceptual
process helps develop strong intentional action.
A robust operational image is rich in character derived from
multiple data streams of sensory experience and ideas. When vision is
compromised, the brain naturally works to maintain image integrity by
optimizing perception and self directed discovery to
heighten the quality of meaningful information gathered through all senses. The
compromised ability to see with eyes need not compromise achievement when the
brain learns to "see" with an in tact and
heightened perceptual imaging system. Thus, self directed,
intentional interaction greatly supports brain development, especially for
people with sensory impairments.
Although learning to see with compromised eyesight is
natural for the brain, this process is easily disrupted by external forces
which impose unnatural conditions of restriction or experiential deficits.
Chief among these may be the imposition of surrogate functioning in which the
functioning of the student is taken over by external agents. Students with
sensory impairments often remain relatively passive while others take over
without eliciting the student's self directive input
- motoring the student, remote controlling the student with excessive verbal or
physical guidance, choosing direction for the student. This can diminish
opportunities for self directed interaction which is
a key catalyst for many areas of development - especially for the perceptual
and psycho-emotional system. Under these conditions, these systems either atrophy
or become otherwise disrupted. Poor capacity to mature through self direction compels the development of perception and
interaction with the environment through the leadership of others, rather than
one's own leadership. Access to the world becomes relegated to and mediated by
proxy perceivers which commandeer a degree of autonomy that should develop
naturally with support. This can foster a self concept
of neediness. Locus of control can become externalized, and achievement
capacity is usurped by lack of self efficacy. Or, the
child may become extremely demanding and controlling in order to have needs met
or desires addressed by others in the absence of their own capacity to do so.
This becomes restrictive when assistance is not engaged in a mutual, give and
take manner.
This pattern often develops understandably from the need to
care for an infant who may have presented very real fragility. The support
system may have been compelled to provide every measure of support to ensure
the infant's survival. Decisions are made to address the most critical needs,
and perspectives and philosophies about the niceties of the future may be put
aside by the real and immediate urgencies of the moment. Then, families may not
encounter professional support to ease this initially necessary and healthy
pattern of dependency into a process more supportive of natural growth toward self direction, even when parents ardently desire this
shift.
Two key requirements enable safe, efficient, and intentional
movement: remaining on a chosen course,
and avoiding body contact with the environment. The perceptual imaging system
naturally endeavors to reference and preview surrounding conditions in order to
plan interactions. We establish intent by drawing meaning from what our senses
register. When available, FlashSonar and the long
cane naturally provide reference and preview information to address these
movement requirements.
Although vision seems to be the default for gathering this
information, the latest in neural research suggests that, when vision is
disrupted, the brain may still anticipate and seek this information. The
mechanisms involved in self direction can restore functioning by restoring
these modes of information access despite vision loss. For both the blind and
sighted brain, it is necessary to foster the brain's capacity to utilize
referencing and preview in order to maintain self directive
capacity. For sighted people, this happens relatively naturally in sighted
society. As visual functioning drops, tactual/kinesthetic and auditory channels
must be more intensively stimulated and applied to restore these modes of
information access. Touch, hearing, residual vision, and attitude must be
respected and supported with perceptual enhancement training from the first
steps when patterns of self and intent are first being established. A self concept of
personal achievement must be fostered.
Children must be supported to discover their world without Nervous Nelley's hovering over every move. Mistakes will happen, but all children,
disabled or not, must learn from mistakes.
Use of the senses can be refined with instruction, but most important is
that children learn that their senses are tools for achievement. Professional instructors are the sign posts,
but the family is the vehicle to make this happen, and under the right
conditions it does happen.
For blind people, hearing can become the dominant sense for
conveying spatial information about the world at intermediate distances, and
facilitating dynamic interactions with the world. As determined by brain scan
research, the capacity of audition to discriminate, recognize, and image
multiple events in dynamic space, called scene analysis, is very pronounced. In
addition, a wealth of widely publicized anecdotal evidence indicates prodigious
capacity. However, the auditory system remains little understood or applied. It
can't be emphasized enough that hearing in blind people must be recognized and
carefully cultivated for use to improve environmental interaction.
We have found FlashSonar training
to be applicable to almost anyone who wants to learn, and who has opportunity
for regular practice under challenging circumstances. The perceptual system is
not necessarily tied to the communication or cognitive process, so many of
these skills can be learned even when cognition or communication is impacted.
With students who are low verbal or cognitively delayed, we use a more
experiential approach, with less drill and less verbal explanation.
The visual system of the brain is believed to be the only
part of the perceptual system that represents the external environment directly
within the neural network. Thus, in a very strict sense, the external
environment is represented within the neurology in a manner that is believed to
be correspondent with the external world. For example, when an objects is
presented to the visual field, it activates a distinct part of the brain that
corresponds to the position of the item. The auditory system does not activate
in this systematic spatial pattern in this way. The tactile system does, but
only for stimuli that actually touch the skin, so we do not call this
externalization. Only the visual system is known to represent or
"map" external space within the brain.
However, it is also known that, under certain circumstances,
the visual brain or imaging system can be deployed to externalize the world
through nonvisual sensory modalities. We call this the "perceptual imaging
process". It is the brain's way of representing its experiences to the
conscious mind. We hypothesize that this process requires strong (bold) stimuli
and intensive, consistent experiences to activate. Since visual input tends to
be bold, and visual experiences tend to be rich and common, the visual system
naturally adapts very quickly to externalizing space through vision. However,
we think it is possible to deploy the visual system reliably and consistently
to externalize the world through nonvisual modalities, provided that these
nonvisual sensations and experiences are bold, rich, and consistent in
character.
In the case of hearing, we believe that the auditory cortex
learns to code the auditory data in some special way having to do with temporal
calculations and sequencing before transmitting this data to the the cerebellum for further temporal processing and application to
movement, the visual cortex for spatial processing and imaging, and the
cerebrum for comprehension and executive function. Without the temporal coding,
I'm not so sure the visual cortex would quite know how to process the auditory
data, but that's just our sense. That the auditory data are also processed
somehow in the cerebellum is known, and we can only speculate why, but we think
it has to do with some kind of pre-anticipation of motor planning and
sequencing. In order to interact with the world and discover our way, we
involve ourselves in a relatively high amount of movement and motor planning.
We also recruit large cerebral processes to comprehend our circumstances, and
to connect the dots of nonvisual data.
A.
Introduction:
Vision
and hearing are close cousins in that they both can process reflected waves of
energy. Vision processes photons (waves of light) as they travel from their
source, bounce off surfaces throughout the environment and enter the eyes.
Similarly, the auditory system can process phonons (waves of sound) as they
travel from their source, bounce off surfaces and enter the ears. Both systems
can extract a great deal of information about the environment by interpreting
the complex patterns of reflected energy that they receive. In the case of
sound, these waves of reflected energy are called "echoes."
To get
these echoes, specialized sounds called echo or sonar signals are generally
sent out. Bio-sonar scientists often refer to these as "sonar calls."
These signals or calls travel forth, strike surfaces in the surrounding
environment and return. The process is much like using a flashlight. Although sonar
is much lower resolution than vision due to the use of much larger wavelengths,
the listener can interpret information about surrounding surfaces that the
returning echoes carry, much as a sighted creature interprets patterns of
returning light. These sonar calls in the form of sound waves actually return
to the listener with imprints that correspond to the characteristics of the
surfaces from which they bounced. Therefore, the characteristics of surfaces
can roughly be extracted from these imprints to construct real, concrete images
of space that we call auditory images, that bear a
gross resemblance to the spatial characteristics of visual images.
Blind
humans can fill the darkness with dynamic images derived, not from light, but
from sound. A blind traveler can perceive multi-dimensional information from
distances of many dozens of meters depending on circumstances. Echoes make
information available about the nature and arrangement of objects and
environmental features such as overhangs, walls, doorways and recesses, poles,
ascending curbs and steps, planter boxes, pedestrians, fire hydrants, parked or
moving vehicles, trees and other foliage, and much more.
B.
Sonar as a Language:
Many
scientists actually refer to the process of irradiating the environment of
sonar calls and interpreting their feedback as "interrogating the
environment." Sonar calls are sent out actively for the purpose for
soliciting information in a directed, intentional fashion. The environment may
be said to respond to these calls with information. We see this process as
interactive. The quality and scope of the information returned depends on the
quality and delivery of the calls, and the calls are delivered and adjusted
depending on the information received. Therefore, we prefer the term
"conversing"; echolocaters converse with
their environment. Each call essentially makwhs two
inquiries, "where are you" and "what are you." As the
environment responds, the echolocater may adjust his
queries to broad his search, solicit more details, or whatever. He may raise or
lower the strength of his call, focus it elsewhere by scanning, increase or
decrease its repetition, and so on until the desired image is constructed.
We also
work with students on developing a language to express and convey their
experiences both to themselves and to others. Sighted people love to talk about
what they see. A rich, visual language has developed that sighted people use to
communicate. Thus, sighted people can convey their own images to others by this
rich, visual language. Blind people are often left out of this communication
process. Society tends not to support development and use of nonvisual
descriptors. They may mystify sighted people, or just go misunderstood. For
example, when one of our Scottish teenaged students was asked if he was aware
of using echolocation (after we had explained what this was), he said (in a
delightful Scottish accent we cannot represent here, "Well, I sometimes
think I can hear walls, but my mum says that's stupid." We often hear
similar stories. So, part of our approach is to help students develop a
vocabulary which they can use to communicate their experiences to others in a
manner that may be better accepted and understood. We will speak more about
this in the next section.
C. Feature
and Scene Analysis:
Echoes
can convey detailed information about the environment according to 3 principal
characteristics:
1.
Location. This refers to the placement
of single and the layout of multipple items - where
they are relative to the echolocater and to each
other. This can be determined in 360 degrees (up, down, left, right, front, back), although some research has shown that frontal
acuity seems strongest. It also refers to the distance of items from the
observer.
2.
Dimension. This refers to how big items
are and their general contour. Here, we are mainly processing the width and
height of the item's surfaces through edge detection. Essential, one is taking
an outline of the edges of the item or items in question.
3.
Depth of Structure. This refers to the
characteristics and make up of the items's surfaces - how solid or sparse (density), how hard
or soft (reflectivity vs. absorbency), and a gross sense of rough and smooth (course
texture).
Just by
understanding the interrelationships of these qualities, much can be perceived
about the nature of an item or multiple items. For example, an item that is
tall, narrow, and uniform from bottom to top may be recognized quickly as a
pole. An item that is tall, narrow, and solid near the bottom while broadening
and becoming more sparse near the top would be a tree.
More specific characteristics, such as size, leafiness, or height of the
branches can also be determined. Something that is tall, very broad, and solid
registers as a wall or building, whereas something solid and broad, yet short
in height, perhaps waist high, would register as a retaining wall. Something broad
yet sparse in sound would register as a fence. Something short and fairly
narrow, a little wider than a person, with a sparse, scattery
sound might be a bush, whereas something with a sparse, scattery
sound but broad might be a hedge or tightly packed row of bushes. Something
that is broad and tall in the middle, yet shorter at either end may be
identified as a parked car. The differentiation in the height and degree of
slope at either end can identify the front from the back end; 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 taller, with a hollow sound reflecting from its bed. An SUV is usually
tall and boxy overall, with a distinctly blocky geometry at the rear. And
finally, something that starts out close and very low, but recedes into the
distance as it gets higher is a set of steps. More or less concentrated
scanning may be necessary to make some of these determinations.
By
using this information, a scene can be analyzed and imaged, by perceiving this
information and layers of distance and direction. This allows the observer to
establish orientation and direct his movement within and through the scene. As
with the visual system, this process becomes unconscious.
D. What
is Detectable?
This
varies widely among students and circumstances. The maximum resolution of
sonic, unaided, human flash based sonar is about 9 square inches (a circular or
squarish target) at about 18 inches distance from the
listener with a solid target presented alone in open space under quiet
conditions using a sonar signal with primary frequency at about 3 kHz. This
figure is general, and is drawn from a synthesis of the literature and our experiences
as blind users and teachers at World Access for the Blind. A pole of about an
inch diameter can be perceived at about two feet. A fire hydrant may be
perceived from several feet away, but not up close unless the student is very
short. Likewise, a 4 inch curb is also easier to detect from distances of about
3 to 10 feet, but not too close. A chainlink fence
may be detectable at 6 to 10 feet. A parked car may be perceived at 10 or 15
feet; add another 5 feet for a van or truck, another 10 feet for a bus or RVFOR
me'. A tree may be detectable from 15 or 20 feet. A large building is
detectable for hundreds of feet with a strong sonar signal. While features in
terrains such as mounds, large rocks, up-curbs, or mud puddles may be
detectable, drop-offs are almost impossible to detect. Low objects such as
curbs seem taller than they are from several feet away. These may be difficult
to perceive up close. Although echoes are quiet and subtle, echoes from large,
hard, nearby objects are extremely pronounced once you know what to listen for.
It becomes as ridiculous for blind people to run into a wall as it is for
sighted people. Excuses for running into easily detectable things should not be
made for blind people anymore than sighted people.
Sonar
struggles most with figure-ground distinction - distinguishing one object or
feature from others. Elements tend to blur together - blending small elements
with large. Also, high noise levels or wind can mask echoes so that they can be
difficult to hear, requiring louder clicks and more scanning.
There
are 4 primary considerations to teaching, using, and evaluating FlashSonar. These are target distinction (how detectable
are the targets), environmental variables (noise and clutter), the perceptual
factors in the student (hearing issues, presence of vision, attention
capacity), and the character of the sonar call and how it is used. Generally,
the character and strategy of the sonar call serve to optimize all of these
conditions, and this latter consideration will be discussed in another section.
1.
Target Distinction. Targets that are very narrow, such as a pole, may not
bounce back as much sound, and may be more difficult to detect. The more sparse (less dense or solid), the target, such as a
fence, the larger it will probably need to be to bounce enough acoustic energy
back to a human listener to be detectable and identifiable. Of particular
concern with human sonar is figure ground. This concept acoustically is very
similar to this same concept as it relates to vision. It has to do with the
extent to which the target can be distinguished from its surroundings.
Acoustically, we are talking about physical geometry and texture of the target
relative to its surroundings. These need to be quite distinct for a target to register
to the human audible system, but experience, concentration, and contextual
clues can narrow this gap. It's hard to quantify this distinction, but we get
an idea of it from the resolution data above. If a target needs to be about 9
square inches to be perceived at a distance of 18 inches from the listener,
this gives us a general idea of how distinct a target needs to be in order to
be registered, let alone identified. Objects that are too close to each other
tend to blur together, with larger, more dense objects
predominating. For example, while a person of average man size may be
detectable at about 7 feet under normal conditions, that same person at the
same distance may vanish if standing next to a wall or large column. However,
he might still be detectable against a chainlink
fence. We always gage this by ear when working with students. Ground level
targets are also an issue, as the presence of the ground, together with the
distance from the ears and the relatively poor angle of perspective all tend to
blur ground level targets, unless they present a large surface area, or are
otherwise quite distinct. A 4 inch high curb may be detectable from 9 or 10
feet, but a park bench might only register at 5 or 6, and a coffee table near a
couch might not register at all. Incidentally, this is where children have a
huge advantage. Their reduced height has the effect of literally making the
whole world larger from the auditory perspective. They can detect shorter
objects much more easily than adults whose heads are further above these same
objects.
2.
Environmental Variables. Basically these include factors that increase or
decrease target distinction. Noise in the environment will make sonar signals
harder to hear, so targets generally need to be bigger or more solid to
register, and sonar signals need to be stronger. Reverberation can have a
similar effect. This could also include rain and strong wind. With strong wind,
it can help to scan left and right repeatedly with the head, or incline the
head such that the affect of the wind is minimized.
Echoes are subtle and may be easily masked by noise, although FlashSonar can be used to extract images through moderately
high noise levels. Clutter or congestion can obscure a target by causing it to
blur with other targets that are too close. When teaching students, we try to
choose quiet, open spaces, or focus on highly distinct targets until students
become more advanced.
3.
Perceptual Variables. Here, we're talking about things like attention, visual
functioning, auditory functioning, familiarity with the environment, and self confidence. We should remember that the three primary
determinants for success are motivation, frequent and regular practice under self direction, and application under challenging circumstances.
Frequent
and passive use of human guide will find FlashSonar
more difficult to learn. This is not to say that using human or dog guides in
and of itself will disrupt perceptual development, but passive dependence on
guidance will. We work on students maintaining active and mutual engagement in
the guiding process. Once learned, FlashSonar can be
used to allow student more freedom to move around comfortably without a guide
when necessary or desired. Or, it can be used in conjunction with a guide to
enrich the travel experience by heightening appreciation and awareness of the
environment.
Echoes
are subtle and require one to be able to attend or at least be motivated to
hear them.
Familiarity
usually increases registration. It is always easier to find a target when you
know what you're looking for.
Broadly
speaking, better hearing enables the highest potential for using echoes.
However, while high frequencies are required for the perception of small
objects and detail on surfaces, most useful sonar skills rely more heavily on
mid frequencies. Even if hearing sensitivity is reduced across large portions
of the spectrum, effective sonar navigation is often possible. Unilateral hearing
loss can make sonar very tricky but not necessarily useless. It is possible to
echolocate with hearing aids if the aids do not interfere with the penna.
Vigilance
is perhaps the most important factor. Because there are many cues that must be
analyzed and integrated for successful blind navigation, concentration is often
divided among many elements. Since sonar information is relatively subtle, it
requires at least a moderate degree of continued concentration for effective
use.
Finally,
it is our experience that congenitally blind students are often already partly
adapted to using the auditory system for imaging. However, they are often
unaware of it, and their skills are usually rudimentary. They can often express
what is around then once the implications of the various stimuli are pointed
out, such as solid vs. sparse, but they may not have used this detail to govern
their travel. They are often aware of minute stimuli, but often not aware of
what it means, or how it relates to them. For example, they may often
accurately describe the elements of an object or scene, but not be able to put
this information together to form meaning. Once, we had a newly blinded woman
participate in a workshop along side two congenitally
blind rehab counselors. The congenitally blind participants would say things
like, "There's a soft, kind of flattish thing in front of us, with some
small, soft things behind it, and a big, hard thing behind it further
away." When asked what they were looking at, they sometimes couldn't even
guess. Whereas the newly blind woman, though she couldn't sense the elements,
could guess accurately what they were once they were described, "It sounds
like maybe a fence with some bushes behind it, and maybe a building behind
that." The congenitally blind participants were hearing the elements, but
not imaging them. The newly blind woman was gaining images from the verbal
descriptions. We aim to help students both hear the elements, and gain images
based on the elements that are heard.
E.
Applications of sonar:
The
applicability of sonar falls into two major categories - orientation and
targeting sonar. Orientation sonar is used to take stock of one's surroundings
(analyze the scene), to establish and track one's position within those
surroundings, and to navigate through them. Targeting sonar is used to fix
one's attention on one or more targets in order to gain information about them,
to intercept them, or to avoid them. These two uses of sonar correspond to
research and observations made independently in the blindness literature in
that mobility has been divided into two similar categories - moving along
(requiring maintenance of orientation), and moving toward (requiring location
and recognition of chosen targets while negotiating other targets).
A.
Introduction:
There
are two kinds of sonar - passive and active. Passive sonar is reliant on
incidental sounds in the environment which elicit incidental reflections. Or,
it may involve sounds produced incidentally by the user, such as footsteps or
cane taps. Because these are produced by the user but lack some of the
characteristics of reproducibility that an organic signal can produce, we refer
to these as semi-active. One can use this to gain information about large features
or general layout, but one is reliant on incidental noises that will not be
ideal for detection of small features or fine discrimination. The images thus
extracted are relatively vague. Signals occurring incidentally can take any
form or set of characteristics at random, yet signals ideal for sonar
applications must contain specific characteristics to optimize them for this
purpose.
Active
sonar involves the use of signals produced by the observer. It allows the
observer to direct actively a self generated signal
into the environment as desired. As discussed earlier, bio-sonar scientists
refer to these as "calls". Ideally, the user will have as much
control over the call as he would his own speech, in order to adjust it to
interact adaptably with any situation. The characteristics under control of the
user, according to the latest research, should ideally include intensity,
reproducibility (degree of consistency), duration (how long to produce),
interval between calls, spectral content (tempre),
usability (how easy to produce and control), adaptiveness
(user variability), noise immunity (how robust and distinct the call remains in
the presence of noise), and directionality (how focused the call can be made
and directed). To this, we also add alignment between the emitted signal in the ears. We find in nature that this alignment
has invariably evolved to be straightforward, and sonar engineers work very
hard to maintain good alignment between emitter and receiver. For the present,
only organically produced signals or calls fit these criteria, so we consider
these to be the most active, and the most optimal.
The
images produced are relatively sharp in focus and detail. It is like the
difference between taking a picture in strictly ambient lighting, or controlling
the lighting by use of a "flash" or strategically placed lighting.
While esthetic appreciation may favor the natural look at times, no one can
argue that photos and video are always clearer and crisper with sharper detail
when the scene is brought under the control of the photographer.
The
greater effectiveness of active sonar lies in the brain's control over and
familiarity with the signal which allows it to distinguish between the
characteristics of the signal it produces from those of the returning signal or
echo. The returning signal is
systematically changed by the qualities of whatever object or feature returns
it, and these changes carry information about what the signal encounters. The relative precision of active sonar is why
it is used most widely in nature and in technical applications. In submarines,
the captain will occasionally tell the sonar technician to "run
silent." This means that the sonar technician must turn off the sonar
signal and navigate the sub by passive sonar means, or remain very still. The
only reason a captain would give this order was if the sub was in nature of
being detected by enemies; the sonar signal customarily used would alert any
enemy to its location. If detection was so unfavorable, why would submarines not
always run silent? The answer is obvious - the sonar signal gave the technician
enough information to navigate the sub safely through waters at high speeds,
whereas the lack of signal does not. It is the same with sonar using animals in
nature. Without an active sonar, bats can't fly or feed, and wales would be
stranded on the surface of the water for all time.
We use
the term FlashSonar, because the ideal sonar signal
resembles a flash of sound, much like the flash of a camera, and the brain
captures the reflection of the signal, much like the film of a camera.
Perhaps
the greatest advantage to FlashSonar is that an
active signal can be produced very consistently so the brain can tune to this
specific signal very intently. This
allows for relatively easy recognition of echoes even in complex or noisy
environments. It's like recognizing a
familiar face or voice in a crowd. The more familiar is the voice, the easier
it is to recognize. The characteristics of an active signal can also be
deliberately controlled to fit situations. For example, consider the two main
applications of sonar in nature - orienting and targeting. Sonar used for
orientation usually takes the form of signals produced less frequently, and
often at higher volumes. For targeting, sonar signals are emitted more rapidly
and with decreasing volume as the target is scanned and approached. The brain
is primed to attend to each echo by virtue of its control over the signal.
Since it knows when it is about to produce a signal, the brain arouses to
attend specifically to the results of that signal. It is unlikely that arousal
to attention of this magnitude can be continually maintained.
B.
Social appropriateness of clicking:
Some
have raised concerns that clicking may be considered socially inappropriate.
Our focus is on the discrete use of a click, which the user adjusts according
to environmental situations. It is not generated louder or more frequently than
is needed, nor is it made with facial ticks. Although
it is possible to use sonar signals that are distracting, we have encountered
very rare instances of the general public expressing any concern about the use
of a tongue click for sonar with oup method. We have
observed and our students report that the sighted public consistently does not
seem to notice or care. This is true among children and adults. What is noted
is that active sonar users tend to carry themselves with erect posture, they
tend to interact with their environment gracefully, and they tend to look
engaged. Other blind people, of course, do notice the clicking. Because of
emphasized auditory attention among blind people, we find that blind people may
assume that sighted people may be giving the clicks more attention than is
actually the case. What sighted people do notice, and what causes heads to turn
more immediately than anything else, is the long white cane.
If
arguments against the use of anything unusual had always been applied,
spectacles, critical to the visual functioning of so many people in today's
world, might never have been used for fear of looking strange. One could apply
the same argument to using a cane, or a wheelchair, or any critical adaptive
device or technique that stands out as unusual, but also changes the lives of
those who use them for the better. Our perspective is that form should follow
function, not the other way around. Which is more awkward: a blind person who
can't find her way efficiently, gracefully and safely from one point to
another, or one who gains the information needed to do so by clicking? To
deprive a blind child of information that can be gained by clicking is
tantamount to forcing a sighted child to go through life with eyes half-closed.
C. The
active sonar call is the basis of the FlashSonar
approach.
Until
technology allows us to produce a more ideal signal, we recommend certain types
of tongue clicks as the ideal signal. These are intended to be unobtrusive,
hands free, and completely under user control without need for reliance on
external elements or circumstances.
D.
Optimization of the call:
In
order for sonar to be optimized, four characteristics must be present - adaptibility of the signal by the user to given situations
and environments, good alignment between signal and ears, minimal masking of
the echo by noise, and familiarity of the signal to the observer. Only an active,
self generated or specially designed signal ensures
that these four criteria are met. Moreover, as discussed earlier, signals must
be under the full control of the user, much as is our speech, in order to query
the environment with maximum flexibility and optimal information gain. Cane
taps and footsteps may elicit some information, but their characteristics will
change depending on the travel surface, their directionality cannot be
controlled, and such signals may not possess ideal spectral characteristics to
maximize the echo and minimize its susceptibility to masking.
An
active signal that is self generated and whose
characteristics are strictly under user control presents the advantage of
allowing the brain to develop a familiarity with the signal. It is always
easier to register something that we recognize. With familiarity, the brain can
tune to the signal, and can therefore register it with less effort under
broader conditions. It locks in most readily on signals that it recognizes.
Also, since the signal is under the strict control of the user, the brain is
always most sensitive to its effect. Bats always use active signals, and
submarine technicians greatly prefer them.
E.
Types of Tongue Clicks:
Research
has found that, of all the signals producible by the human oral mechanism,
tongue clicks hold the most immunity to noise, being most clearly
distinguishable in the presence of noise. Phoneticists
have classified and analyzed five distinct types of tongue clicks. Their names
are not important. What we want is a sharp, solid snap, click, or popping sound
that the user can control to soft or loud volume. This is usually produced by
pressing the blade of the tongue (flat, middle part) firmly against the roof of
the mouth, then pulling sharply downward to break the vacuum. The tip of the
tongue should stay more or less stationary and NOT flop down to the bottom of
the mouth to form a second "pop." When the tongue does this, we call
this the "cluck click." A tongue click should produce a single, sharp
signal, not a double click or clucking sound. Failing the sound being produced
by the blade, a respectable sound may be produced by the sides of the tongue
against the mollers. This produces the "giddy
up" click. Another click suitable for temporary purposes is the "tsk tsk" click, the kind we often make to express
disapproval. This is produced by the tip of the tongue against the top teeth.
Whatever the click, it should ideally not cause odd facial expression, or be
used too often or too loudly without cause. Soft clicks should generally be
used to detect targets that are close or in quiet environments.
F.
Students who use echoes are often unaware that they are doing so.
Moreover,
they can be unconscious of trying to elicit echoes by such behaviors as tongue
clicking, hand clapping, finger snapping, foot scraping, cane banging, or
yelling. What they are really trying to do should be called to their attention.
If their endeavors are obtrusive, they should be redirected to more discrete
and more useful behaviors.
G.
Handheld clickers
These
may be used in certain circumstances. These can be purchased as animal training
tools from some pet stores. The clicker should be cupped in the hand, button
facing outward and forward, and activated by the thumb. Clickers should be
sounded either at waist level or above the head, never near the ears. At least
1 second should span between press and release of the button. Clickers should
never be activated rapidly, and should only be used out of doors or in open environments.
They tend to have one volume only, and this is loud, too loud for indoor use or
for use in detecting close obstacles. It's lack of
flexibility makes it better for orientation rather than targeting purposes.
H.
Signals for very beginning exercises. In the very beginning some students may
benefit from making a continuous "shshshsh"
sound, or just using their voice. Some students may not have the breath support
to make long "shshshsh" sounds. If this is
the case, the transistor radio tuned off station (see VI-F) may help. This
should be held just below the student's chin.
(For all target stimuli, transparency is ideal but not
required.)
A. Two,
1 gallon wide mouthed jars, and one jar about half the size of the others. It
doesn't matter what the jars are made of, but they should be made of the same
material. Plastic will be easier to handle for the exercises, but not required.
B. Two
large bowls or pots, at least 4 quarts. These can be salad bowls, mixing bowls,
or whatever. Plastic is easiest to handle but not required.
C.
Three bottles of about a pint or quart - one medium mouthed and two normal
mouthed of the same size as each other. Health juices and sports drinks often come
in these sized bottles, with mouths slightly wider than is typical. Simple
water bottles may serve for the normal mouthed.
D. Five
flat, solid, more or less square panels in the following approximate sizes: 20
inches on each side, 16 inches on a side, 12 inches, 8, and 4 inches on each
side. (If circles are used instead of square, add about an inch diameter to
each specification above.) Precision is not required, here. All panels should
be made of the same material, but the material doesn't matter as long as the
panels are hard and solid. Cardboard works. This may be obtained from a throw
away box from a furniture or appliance store, or bike shop.
E. One
20 by 40 inch piece of cardboard, folded in half to a 20 by 20 inch square.
F. One
small, portable AM/FM transistor radio. The radio is to be tuned off station on
the FM dial, so you just hear static or white noise.
G. A
handheld clicker. These can be found at toy stores (in the shape of bugs or
small animals) or pet stores (used for animal training).
H. About 40 cubic inches of soft foam - enough to fill a 1
gallon jar or large bowl. This is not stirafoam, but
soft, sponge like foam like that called "egg crate" foam laid over a
mattress for sleeping comfort. Egg crate foam cut into fist sized pieces may be
used, or soft packing foam purchased from a shipping or mailing supply store.
A.
Neural Activation of External Mapping:
Present throughout all these strategies, exercises, and activities is a
view toward encouraging the student to interact with accuracy and precision
with the external environment. This means directed reaching for stimuli, and
moving toward, among, and around stimuli with precision. We discourage groping
or fishing for what may be there, but rather a direct reaching for what is
perceived to be there. This isn't to say that we discourage discovery
exploration. Exploration is encouraged, but when we have opportunity to know
what is there before reaching, we encourage active, directed reaching and
precision movement.
We
believe that this activates the externalized mapping process. How this is best
done is a matter for speculation, and will remain so until we understand the
neural mechanisms better, and can cross reference neural development with
behavioral development. In the mean time, we may use
what we know and what we have observed and experienced to draw some inferences
and make some educated guesses about how to activate the perceptual imaging
system. Among other things, we take our cue from infants, which are perhaps our
predominant teachers. Infants have to teach themselves how to externalize and interact with their
environment. Adults are both helpful and disruptive to this process. It's
really up to the infants ultimately to figure it all out, and they generally do
an okay job despite the well intentioned meddling. Sighted infants engage in
two critical developmental milestone behaviors that we believe strongly
activates this external spatial mapping process at an early age.
They engage in directed reaching, and they recognize faces.
Whether
or not blind kids generally engage in directed reaching and under what
circumstances is a subject of debate. Suffice it to say that some blind kids do
engage in reaching, but the degree of directedness even among those who do actively reach
is highly variable. It is more common for blind kids to engage in what we call
discovery reaching, wherein the hands, arms, and whole body become tools for
canvassing ones surroundings, just as a sighted child's eyes do. We believe
this constitutes valid support to the child's development. At the same time,
many blind kids tend not to engage in directed reaching with precision toward
desired items of chosen interest. Patterns of passive reception are often
engendered by items consistently placed directly into the child's hands without
the child being stimulated to reach for a given item. Or, a child's hands are
often physically directed to objects by others, or the child is expected to
just fish haphazardly for objects. We hypothesize that these common scenarios
can disrupt the development of a process by which the child establishes a dynamic
relationship with the environment by mapping its elements relative to himself,
and directing his interaction with these elements with precision. It is through
the self directed interactive relationship that both
the externalized mapping and executive function (managing one's affairs through
personal choice) occurs. As this directed reaching phase is often missed with
blind children, and is not necessarily reestablished nonvisually
as they grow older, we infuse our program with continuous opportunities to
engage in directed reaching for items and stimuli, as well as precision
interaction with said stimuli. As students are called upon to interact with the
world - negotiating, retrieving, approaching, or circumventing, we look for
increasing levels of precision movement with grace, speed, and confidence.
Blind
infants recognize voices that are significant to them, and we can argue that
this may serve the same social needs for emotional exchange. However, the
acoustic recognition of voices may not serve the same needs for developing
capacities for discrimination and classification of spatial elements beyond
arm's reach. While faces may not be recognizable by their acoustics, surface
features such as gross texture, absorption/reflectivity, and density (solid or
sparse) can be perceived through sufficiently active and strategically applied
sonar. We hypothesize that, for both perception of surface characteristics and
directed reaching/precision, the clearer the image, the more boldly these
details register within the neural network. This is where the quality of the
sonar signal comes in, as well as systematic, discovery based exposure to
exercises, activities, stimuli, and environments that facilitate the external
mapping process.
B.
Observation:
It is
important to know what passive or active sonar skills the student is already
using. Take plenty of time to observe the student's existing sonar skills. This
can be done during other lessons. For example, instead of requiring him to
trail along a hallway, allow or encourage him to walk down the hallway in his
own way. See if he is able to direct his course between the two walls. See if
he seems to be able to perceive when a wall or door is in front of him. Observe
if the student stops independently or hesitates before contacting objects in
the environment. How directed are his movements? If the student is able to do
these things, he may be demonstrating some basic sonar skills. Some children
demonstrate good skills at an early age with no instruction, but good instruction
always helps improve skills.
C. Tips
for Teaching Tongue clicks:
1.
Most students can make a suitable click without much training. Students can
often learn by modeling. If students hear it enough, they eventually come to do
it. For kids, we teach parents and siblings how to make the sound if the
student can't do it. Usually, they can.
2.
It may help to use a popcycle stick, tongue
depressor, or spoon to show the students where to place their tongue. Tongue
depressors come sterilized and individually wrapped. They are available from
medical supply stores; some pharmacists may carry them. A doctor's office may
provide a few as samples. Spoons are easy to obtain. Enlisting the help of a
speech and language therapist may also help, if one is available. (They may
also have some tongue depressors.)
3.
A click that we try to avoid is what we call the "cluck click." This
is a double click in which the tip of the tongue slaps against the bottom of
the mouth. We want a sharp, single click similar to a finger snap or the pop of
chewing gum.
4.
For students who struggle to make a click, we teach tongue awareness. We
identify two parts of the tongue - the tip (the forward part used to make
sounds like "t," "d," and "l", and the blade of
the tongue, used to make sounds like "k", "g," and "ng" combination. Have the student make these sounds.
Have the student try to make a click sound while the student very gently
presses a spoon or something beneath the tip of the tongue, just to provide
some feedback to remind the tongue not to drop. Sometimes, this alone helps the
student make a useful click.
5.
If not, we inform the student that the click we may be
looking for is formed with the same part of the tongue and mouth used to make
the "k," "g," and "ng"
sounds. Have the student gently hold the tip of the tongue still with the spoon
while making these other sounds. Have the student try to alternate between
making these other sounds, and a tongue click. Typically, a student can do
this. It may help the student to imagine that a blob of peanut butter is stuck
on the roof of their mouth, and he must use the blade of his tongue to pull the
peanut butter away. The center of the tongue should be pressed to the roof of
the mouth to create pressure, then pulled away quickly and forcefully,
producing a distinct click. If a click is juicey or
"sloppy" to begin with, it will usually tighten up or sharpen with a
little time and practice.
One
exercise that may be useful is the "king-kong"
exercise. While holding the tip of the tongue against the lower palate just
behind the top teeth, the student says "king-kong".
Of course, they will sound very silly doing this with the tongue tip pressed
tightly and not moving, and this injects a bit of levity into the experience. After
a few "king-kongs", have the student lead
directly from the "king-kong" into an
alveolar click. After a few times, many students find this easy.
6.
If the student just can't make any suitable click at first, have them produce a
"ch ch" sound.
7.
Children under the age of 6 or 7 will not generally respond to specific tongue
click instruction. Often, it will just
put them off the process. In this case
the click can be modeled for him by others. Just do the click yourselves around
him until he catches on. Children
typically learn by mimickery, and blind children are
often particularly sensitive to this.
Otherwise, ask a speech therapist for help if it is needed.
D.
Systematic Stimulus Differentiation:
We
believe the brain learns to see by using systematic stimulus differentiation.
This natural process may be sped up with formal instruction. The process of
helping someone to learn FlashSonar, or any other
perceptual skill for that matter, involves helping the student to move through
a process of unconsciousness to consciousness to second nature. We conduct many
of our activities unconsciously with a lack of awareness of how we do what we
do. Often, we are also unaware of how our performance falls short of where it could be. We start
by making the unconscious conscious. Perception becomes deliberate and
conscious. Once the process is made conscious, the student can deliberately and with
awareness targets skill areas needing refinement, and set about refining them through this process of self monitoring. Once this is done, the skills being
applied become second nature, but this is not the same as unconscious. They are
second nature, because they are so easy as to require little attention to
execute. We are still very much connected to what we are doing, we just don't
need to concern ourselves with maintaining vigilance to that process. Lack of
consciousness or awareness, on the otherhand, means a
lack of connection to what we are doing, and how. Without this connection, we
cannot intentionally manipulate and effect or own experiences and interactions.
With very young children, we can move from unconsciousness to second nature,
without necessarily passing
through the conscious phase. Or, if we do pass through that
phase, it may be brief.
This
whole procession starts by tickling the brain into registering and processing
subtle stimuli that may be beyond the conscious experience of the student.
These stimuli often flow through our perception without conscious awareness,
and the neural system may not have developed the full capacity to register or
react to these stimuli. As instructors, we must help the student to "hook
in" to these stimuli so that channels of processing these stimuli can be
opened and made alive. The opening of these channels is often accompanied by a
spontaneous sense or expression of excitement or sudden realization - the
"ahha!" experience. This involves helping
students to register and process stronger or more intense stimuli so that the
brain may then open to processing subtler and finer stimuli. Perception of and
reaction to the stimuli is key. For this to happen, the instructor helps the
student to develop a relationship with the stimuli on their own terms. This
relationship is not governed or even guided by the instructor. It is supported
into development through aself directed discovery
process, which is articulated eleswhere. Six
strategies may help to do this - stimulus sensitization, stimulus
clarification, stimulus comparison, stimulus association, stimulus shift, and refocusing.
we'll give a general discussion of each strategy, and
then more specifics as they apply to the specific activities. Some of these
activities are very rudimentary, and may not be applicable or relevant to most
students. However, some students, especially newly blinded ones or perhaps ones
with hearing impairment or processing disorders, do benefit from exposure to
these rudimentary steps.
E.
Stimulus Sensitization:
As this
term implies, we are helping students to "sensitize" to subtle
stimuli, helping students to "hook in" to the experience. We start
with sensitizing students to echoes, usually by having them detect and locate
targets that are easy, such as large plastic panels or bowls. This helps them
get a sense of what echoes sound like. Once this is established, we move to
subtler and more complex stimuli. We find the level of stimuli into which they
can "hook", then gradually move to subtler stimuli. Many students
will pass through the earlier, more obvious stimuli very quickly, while others
will need more time.
1.
Noticing Strong Echoes. When the student is moving around the house or other
environments, help her to notice the presence of strong echoes. For example,
many children who are blind love to play sound games in highly reverberate
environments such as rest rooms, breeze ways, or stair wells. Encourage the
child to sing, repeat words after you, or clap in the bathroom or garage or
other large, uncarpeted places without a lot of furniture or other objects that
absorb sound. If the child makes noise in places with strong echoes, she can
notice that her voice sounds different in these places than in other places.
You can also make a noise in the bathroom and then move quickly out into the
hallway where there is less echo, and make the same noise there so that the
child can compare. Corners in a room also usually emit stronger echoes than
other areas of the room.
2.
The bottles are intended to give clear examples of hearing differences in the
environment. They're used to prove a point. One can make the point that the
sounds made by musical instruments, even though they may sound hugely varied to
us, are actually the result of very minor changes in the instrument itself. A
very small shift of one's finger on a guitar or position of a bow on a violin,
or change of fingering on a flute produces a huge change in the experience of
the ear.
a.
The student should be able to tell by ear when a liquid is reaching the top of
the mid mouthed bottle or glass without touching. Liquids may be poured at
different speeds to ensure the student is listening, and not just timing.
b.
Put slightly different amounts of water in each of the two standard mouthed
bottles. The student should be able to hear the difference when blowing across
the bottles, even if it is very slight. Only an extra tablespoon of water in
one of the bottles will make it sound noticeably different. Students should be
able to tell which one is the higher or lower pitch. If the student can't,
increase the difference a little more at first. Again, the point is simply to
begin heightening auditory sensitivity to changes that are more obvious before
moving on to those which are more subtle.
3.
The phase effect.
a.
Using the radio at low volume or a "shshsh"
sound, or continuous vocal tone "aaaaaaah",
move the large, solid panel from above or behind the student's head, to
directly in front of their face. The panel should seem to appear suddenly
before them. Don't move the panel too quickly, as the sound of your arm or the
wind burst from the panel may arouse the student's attention. Be sure they can
tell the difference between the panel being there vs.
not there. If they can't, then clarify the stimulus by moving to the salad bowl
(see Vii-E), or the jar. Once the student can hear the presence, then do the
same thing with the large, flat panel further away.
b.
Next, try slowly waving the panel toward and away from the student's face.
Discuss the change in phase as the panel moves. Can the student tell when the
panel moves? Can they tell when it is just about to touch them? If not, try
with the bowl, then move back to the panel. (This is an example of stimulus
clarification.)
c.
Finally, move the panel from in front to the left, and from in front to the
right. Have student say which way it moved. Keep the flat surface of the panel
facing the student's head. In other words, don't just
move the panel laterally along a plain from left to right, but move it along a
circumference circumscribing the student's head such that the surface is always
pointing at the student. Have the student practice scanning to hear when their
"shshsh" sounds different. Or, by this
time, the student may already be using a tongue click. This is encouraged.
d.
Note: While clarifying the stimulus using the salad bowl (see Vii-E) can be
helpful, we don't always start out these particular sensitization exercises
with the salad bowl, because the concaved surface, while more intense, can blur
the clear phase shift affect that we want students to tune into. It's better if
they can get it without resorting to the bowl, but not a crime if they need the
bowl.
4.
Stimulus Target Presentation. These include the jars and various panels (see
VI). These are always presented to students with the instructor standing behind
the student so that the instructor's presence does not interfere with the
detection of the stimulus targets. These exercises should ideally be done in a
large, open, nonreverberant, fairly quiet space (not
absolutely quiet; about the noise level of a quiet day in a suburban
residential neighborhood). If there are constant noises in the area, such as
air conditioning or traffic, it's ideal if the noise is more or less evenly
diffused throughout the environment so that it lacks directionality. If the
noise is directional, then it should be placed behind the student so that sound
shadows do not interfere with cuing of reflected sounds. If the exercises are
performed in a large room, be sure the student is not facing a wall or corner
that is too close to them. The stimuli are presented around the head as quietly
as possible. It is best for the instructor not to wear long sleeves, because
clothing rustles. When presenting a stimulus to one side of the head, the
instructor should move both arms, including the empty one, but keep the elbow
of the empty arm bent so that that arm is kept out of the student's auditory
view. Moving both arms will keep the student from just cuing off the arm that
moves, since they both are moving. But by bending one arm, the student won't be
distracted or confused by the presence of the empty arm.
In
general, these basic stimulus sensitization exercises move from presenting the
jars first, then the bowl, then the flat panels. We generally move from the
large flat panels to the smaller ones over time. We start at very near
distances before moving to arm's length. Even if students seem well ahead of
the game in their sonar, it isn't a bad idea to just zip through all the easy
exercises anyway. It can give material to refer back to when the exercises get
more complex. We always start with teaching the student simply to detect the
presence or absence of stimuli, before moving on to location (left, right,
high, or low). The various stimuli can be brought up later to represent real
features of the environment - chambers of various sizes, alcoves, corners, and
walls. The students will often be slow and methodical at first in giving their
answers, but we want them to reach the point when they can instantly and almost
casually give the correct answer without hesitation or second guessing.
a.
Sample Exercises:
(1)
Present single large jar at various locations, and test detection. Discuss the
sound. Start close, then move further back. Then, discuss the difference in
sound between the large and small jar. First, present them individually, then
present both at the same time, one to each side, having the student turn his
head side to side to click or make some suitable noise into each. Discuss the
difference between the size. Next, fill one of the
large jars with foam, and repeat the stimulus differentiation exercise,
discussing the difference.
(2)
Compare the "bowl" sound to the "jar" sound. The jar may
sound more hollow than the bowl, more like a chamber.
Also, present the large bowls to each ear simultaneously but at different
distances. Have student state which is further, which is closer. Start with
very different distances, then reduce the difference.
(3)
Repeat above exercise template using the flat panels, but don't compare size;
compare panel to bowl, bowl to jar, panel to bowl or jar, etc. It may help to
present both stimuli together to right and left, rather than alternating.
Student can say, "the bowl is on the right; the panel
is on the left." Or, "there's a panel above me and also one to the
right." Discuss the differences in sound. Again, the bowl should sound more hollow than the flat panels. Also, the panel exercises
should be done interspersed among other exercises (see below), not in an
unbroken series. Encourage students to scan with their heads to differentiate
the presence from absence of the panel from one side to the other. When doing
distance differentiation, never use different sized panels, but always the same
size.
(4)
After doing a few of the exercises above, present the long piece of cardboard
folded at 90 degrees as a corner, but don't tell the student what it is.
Discuss what it sounds like, and what environmental feature it may represent.
(5)
The exercises above can and should be repeated using real environmental
features, such as blank walls, fences, and rooms of various sizes. Students can
place their back, front, and each shoulder to a wall or fence after being
disoriented. Start at a distance of about a meter, then increase to perhaps 20
meters. Note that some students may find sonar characteristics easier to hear
at first from greater rather than lesser distances. Real environment exercises
needn't be put off until all panel exercises are complete. They can be
conducted between and among the panel exercises for the sake of variety and
stimulation. It is often useful to the student to start to see the application
of these exercises early in the program as this may not be self
apparent, especially for young ones. In fact, young ones may not stand
long for these silly drill exercises; they will probably need a more
experiential approach involving real features most of the time. In general
young ones do learn better when movement is involved.
b.
Special Considerations:
(1)
If students can't do a tongue click (see V and VII-C), have them use a "ch ch" sound instead.
(2)
If students have difficulty detecting these targets using a pulsed signal, try
using "shshsh" or the radio at low volume
placed at chin level. It may help to move the panel toward and away from the
face with the continuous signal, and discuss the sound of the change. Can the
student tell when the panel or bowl moves? Can they hear it move from side to
side, and which side?
(3)
If students don't seem to be able to hear the objects, try detection of large
walls at distances of 15 or 20 feet. Discuss what the sound is like, a distinct
echo, as we turn in different directions. Discuss how the sound changes as we
get closer or further away. A pulsed signal gets closer or further from its
echo. As we get real close the echo merges with the signal. Once the student
understands the sound of presence, go back to the panels.
F.
Stimulus Clarification:
When
students are unable to register or describe a stimulus consistently, it may be
that the stimulus needs to be clarified. There are generally three ways to do
this.
1.
Representation. a similar but more detectable stimulus
may be used. For example, if a student cannot detect an opening in a wall, say
an open door, find a room that is highly reverberant (larger or less furnished)
that the student can hear more clearly as he or she passes the opening. Another
example might be if a student has difficulty locating interior corners, he will
likely be better able to find a large alcove. One can discuss the sound of an
alcove, and relate it to the similar but less "hollow" sound of a
corner. Alcoves and corners tend to be easy to detect and locate, because they
throw back most of the acoustic energy to the sonar user.
2.
Intensificationccbdda Bring
the student closer to the stimulus, or use a larger version of the stimulus,
such as increasing the size of the open door or branching corridor. This serves
to intensify the stimulus under investigation.
3.
Elumination: use a different sonar signal for that
exercise. If the student can't detect the stimulus with a pulsed signal, such
as a click, perhaps she can with the radio or clicker. This strategy sheds a
different "light" on the stimulus that may cause it to stand out so
the student can detect it more easily. Then, go back to using a tongue click.
G.
Stimulus Comparison:
It may
help to compare directly one stimulus with another. This is particularly useful
when instructing registration of feature characteristics - dimension (height,
breadth), location, and density (see IV). It may help the student to register
these signature types when they have a basis for immediate comparison. For
example, if a student is having difficulty registering foliage, confusing it
with various types of fencing, it may help to find a location where both types
of stimuli are immediately available. One can find locations to compare trees
to poles, retaining walls to hedges, a car to a truck, a building with an
awning to one without, a wall to steps, a wroughtiron
fence to chainlink, etc.
H.
Stimulus Association:
Stimulus
association is the conceptual version of stimulus comparison. Instead of
comparing elements in the environment, we are comparing them in our minds by
drawing upon mental references. For example, when facing a hedge, a student
might say, "It sounds solid?" We might reply, "as solid as the wall to your house?" "No, not that
solid," she might reply. "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 else near your
house, maybe in the side yard?" "Bushes?" she might query.
"But what seems different from those bushes?" "These are sort of
flat like a fence." If she can't put the word to it, we have her touch to
determine that it's a hedge, and we may discuss why it sounds the way it does.
This strategy is often used in discussing and describing stimuli. As students
build up more of a repertoire of experience and understanding of acoustic
imaging concepts, they can draw on this experiential base to understand and
work out new stimuli. For example, when a student is having difficulty
identifying or describing a feature, such as a palm tree (because of its
seemingly solid, flat branches), one might ask "what does it remind you
of? What are its characteristics?" We might discuss other trees we've
encountered, and talk about how this one seems similar and different. When we
are learning to find entrances to buildings, we often discuss what alcoves
sound like. When finding open doors, we may discuss what branching corridors
sound like. When learning to cross a street toward a building on the opposite
corner, we may talk about what it was like to cross the open field or parking
lot to a building on the other side. We often refer to beginning exercises when
coming to understand the more advanced ones.
I.
Stimulus Shift:
The
stimulus shift paradigm is used by psycho-physicists to teach a student
(subject) to register and respond to one stimulus by substituting another, more
powerful stimulus, then fading that stimulus gradually so that perception of
the subtler stimulus builds. For example, a student may have difficulty finding
and approaching a tree trunk. The canopy of the branches can obscure the trunk.
It may help to place the radio at the trunk, and have the student approach that
at first. The student gains experience orienting toward and approaching a sound
source. At first, the student is reliant on the sound source. But, the sound
source is reduced gradually in volume. Without realizing it, as if by magic,
the nervous system gradually keys into the echo stimulus as if the radio were
still on. It's a kind of neurological bate and switch
- a way of tricking the brain into thinking it's responding to one stimulus,
when it has really learned to adapt to and register and respond to another.
J.
Attention Stabilization:
Due to
frequent emphasis on passive guidance by others, many students may not be
accustomed to placing their motor system under the guidance of their auditory
system. Also, congenitally blind children often tend to focus their attention
into their heads, or on to matters of cognition other than the physical
environment, such as the social environment. They often focus on what we call
"in the head" environment, or focus on social engagement with a high
degree of linguistic rather than spatial processing. There's nothing wrong with
these focuses, but we'd like to encourage a balance. Recent blindness, or long
time lack of self directed movement will exacerbate
these tendencies. The perceptual system often becomes disrupted by passive
reliance on guidance on the part of supporters and professionals. The
inter-connection between the motor and visual systems is well established, but
the inter-connectedness between the motor and auditory systems, other than for
balance through the vestibular system, is much less understood. It is often
assumed among perception experts to be of no great affect, but there are
notable disagreements on this point, and this controversy is beginning to fade
with new data. Whatever the case, it is probably true that the auditory-motor
connection is more tenuous than the visual-motor connection. For this reason,
the auditory-motor connection often appears to benefit from an
"assist" development. In trying to work out this connection, the perceptual
system may become confused or overloaded at times for some students, requiring
a moment of pause and refocus. This can be facilitated by an instructional
agent. For example, when asked to locate an object or to move in a circle
around one, students may begin to meander near or around the object, eventually
wandering away from it without realizing it. They may do this even when they
know where the object is. It often helps simply to bring the student's
attention back by asking, "where
is that pole?" Or, it may help
to instruct them to "stop, face it, now go for
it." Students can do this surprisingly well. On one occasion, we were
working with a sighted person under blindfold for a TV segment. He was learning
to find a minivan in an empty parking lot up to 20 feet away from his starting
position. He had had two or three successful finds, and we had increased the
distance. As he was searching, we could tell by his body movements that,
consciously or not, his perceptual system had registered and noted its location,
though still tenuously. But, the presence of the camera man was pulling his
attention off track, and he began to wander. He was told, "You know where
it is. Don't let the camera man pull you're attention
away from your objective. Re-establish your course. Trust in what you
know." At that his wavering reduced, and he pendulumed
his way back on track as if drawn by a distant magnet until he reached the van.
He reported that helping him refocus at that crucial moment was essential.
Helping the student stop and refocus before they get too far off track can
actually help them to adopt good perceptual habits of presence of mind,
attentiveness, maintenance of conscious awareness, and self-trust. Usually,
this is best achieved by asking strategic questions or dropping thought
provoking hints, rather than by giving directives, descriptions, or
explanations.
Some
students' attention just seems to be everywhere but on the activity at hand or
the environment around them. Many students develop a coping mechanism of accessing
the environment through others, rather than by their own self direction. To an
extent, this can be adaptive as long as it doesn't limit the student's
opportunities for activity, or pose an undue burden to others. Again, we look
for balance. Other students may just be stuck in perseverative language about
anything and everything except what's happening now. Or, they may get stuck on
a sound or texture, and be unable to move on in their attention. With some
students, we may set down parameters of interaction. For example, we may
explain to the student that we will engage the student's conversation when that
conversation pertains to the immediate activity, or to the immediate
environment. Conversation about anything else will not be engaged.
Another
approach often found helpful is placing a bean bag on each shoulder, or perhaps
the top of the head. This often has an amazing affect
on the student's ability to slow down and focus. Rather than pose a
distraction, the process of keeping the bean bags from falling seems to
heighten attention globally. It has been found useful in remediating certain
reading and learning difficulties in sighted kids. It may do this by causeaing an automatic bio-feedback loop, which gently
encourages attention. It can also keep those bouncey,
jiggley kids from bouncing and jiggling too much.
Placing the bean bags in spare plastic produce bags may increase the affect,
because it's easier to hear the bag when it falls. For students who are
reluctant to do this, We may make it a kind of game by
wearing the bean bags ourselves, and seeing who can do it the longest. We let
the students know that we are willing to engage in whatever task or activity we
pose for them; that's only fair.
A.
Maintaining various facing relative to a flat surface (see exercise
Vii-E-4-a-(5).
B.
Orienting to and moving toward an object:
Position
student about 8 feet from a wall and ask him to approach the wall directly.
Increase the distance over time to 60 feet or more. Some students may need to
be reminded to face the wall first before moving toward it. If student has
difficulty with this, it may help to place a sound source (the radio) at the
wall, and gradually reduce the volume of the radio so that the sonar sense will
take over (see VII-I). It may also be easier for some students to localize and
approach walls more distant first, then closer. For some students, the time
delay aspect of sonar at distances is easier to hear than phase cancellation at
close distances. Students should also learn to approach smaller objects, such
as a pole, tree, or bush. It is common for children to meander around an
object, even when they know where it is. It is as if they're nervous system
hasn't attached movement to auditory perception, such that auditory perception
can guide movement. The student may need to practice turning first, then moving
toward the pole. Finding the trunk of a tree may also be done, but the presence
of the canopy may reduce the figure ground of the trunk. Student should
practice moving toward a wall from a distance, then gracefully turning before
reaching the wall and walking parallel to the wall.
C.
Alcove and interior corner location:
This is
simply an activity to learn to find a corner. A corner is needed with at least
3 meters of clear space before it. This may include detection of alcoves, such
as an entrance alcove. This can be done in an auditorium setting. The student
is positioned so that he is facing oblique to the corner. The student practices
turning and moving directly to the corner. Some students may need to be
reminded to turn their body first to face the corner, then move toward it.
Distance should increase to about 15 feet. One can have a student move from one
corner of a room diagonally to the other, sensing the opening of the corner
behind them as they move away, and the closing in of
the corner in front of them as they move toward. The room can be 15 by 15 at
first, but then larger rooms should be used. It can also help to place various
obstacles in the way, between the corners. The student may not be expected to
detect all the obstacles without touching them, but should be able to maintain
orientation and direction from one corner to the next while navigating among
the scatter of obstacles.
1.
Students should first be able to turn toward and travel directly to a blank
wall from 20 or 30 feet.
2.
If student is having trouble, it may help to position student about 5 feet away
from the corner such that she is exactly facing the corner. Have her feel it
with her cane. Then, ask her to turn and face "the right wall", then
"the left wall" just as if turning her head to the panel or wall. It
may also help to have students find the alcove first before finding a corner.
She may wish to practice finding the opening to a large alcove, and traveling
into and out of it.
D.
Tracking Course Boundaries:
This
involves being able to guide one's motion auditorily
along borders and boundaries, such as walls, fences, a row of poles, lines of
foliage, hallways, or aisleways in stores and parking
lots. Start with solid, continuous surfaces before moving to sparse or
intermittent features. Also, start with shorter distances before increasing
distance. Distance may be increased to about 30 feet; wide corridors may be
found in transit stations, airports, and suburban alley ways. When boundaries
consist of clusters of elements, such as tables and chairs in a restaurant,
individual elements of the path boundary may not be discernable, but these
often cluster or aggregate to become detectable as a unit. For example, when
winding one's way through a food court or restaurant, one may easily be able to
thread one's way pretty gracefully among the furniture with minimal contact,
without necessarily being able to distinguish or recognize any given piece.
Encourage students to move at a moderate or brisk pace, as this will make this
exercise easier. If they have trouble, it may help to use the radio pointed at
the wall. It may also help to use the stimulus shift paradigm (VII-H) - placing
the radio at the end of a long stretch of wall at the same distance that the
student is to walk from the wall, such that the student walks directly toward
the radio. Lower the volume over time so that the sonar takes over. Have
student turn an exterior corner and maintain parallel distance. Some students
may find it easier to travel straight down a corridor before paralleling a
single wall. Also, it may help some students to do the centering exercise.
E.
Centering:
Here,
students learn to center themselves between two surfaces. Find or arrange two
more or less flat surfaces about 8 feet apart. The two surfaces should be
approximately similar in nature. It is best if the two surfaces are in an
otherwise open area. They could be tables stood on end, or parked cars, or
trash bens, or a wide corridor, or easels holding large boards. (The surfaces
don't necessarily need to be precisely flat, but they should be uniform to each
other.) Situate student midway between the two surfaces, and explain that she
is centered. Have her feel the equal distance with her cane. Then, disorient
and re-situate with the student much closer to one side, and ask "which
side are you closest to." (Young children often cannot answer this
question when put this way, even when they know the answer. It often helps to
ask "which side can you reach right out and touch?" Or, "go to
the side you can touch the easiest or quickest.") Then, re-situate students
so that they're near the center, but definitely not centered, and ask them to
center themselves. They will often get close and say they are. It very often
helps to then simply say, "You're close, but you're closer to one side
than the other. Which one?" Nine time out of ten when asked this question,
the students can state correctly which side they're closes to, and center
themselves more closely. We don't expect exact centering right away. If they're
within a few inches, we just tell them they're good. We don't push for
"exact" centering until they've advanced considerably. Increase the
distances between the two surfaces to about 50 feet apart. (For this, the
surface should be large, like between two buildings.) If they really can't get it,
then refresh using flat panels "which one's closer?" (see VII-D-4-a). It may also help to skip to the surfaces far
apart first, then move to the closer ones.)
F.
Circling:
The
student should be able to walk in a circle around a large-ish
object in either direction, and stop at the point of beginning. It doesn't need
to be a circular object; it may be a minivan, large column, kiosk, a display
case, a tree, or whatever. The object being traveled around should stand in
otherwise pretty open space. Large objects should come first before smaller
objects, such as poles or bushes. There should be some defining feature that
indicates the starting point. It can be the presence of another object, such as
a distant building, or it can be another noise, such as traffic sounds. A
student might even be ask to use a compass or the sun, or the wind, or some
unique characteristic in the ground. Otherwise, the space should be fairly open
at first, but can be more congested later. Some beginning students may wander
far and wide from the circle, not realizing they've lost it, because it fades
gradually out of their perception. When a subtle stimulus fades gradually, one
often doesn't realize it's fading until it's gone. Stabilizing attention often
helps, here. We may ask, "Where's that (thing)?" Students can often
reorient themselves quite well just by this question. They may need to stop,
reorient, then continue.
IX. NEGOTIATING OBSTACLES:
A.
Moving among obstacles with goal direction:
The
traveler can learn to move among obstacles, maintaining goal directedness, with
little or no physical contact with obstacles through body or cane. We generally
start by approaching and avoiding a single, large, solid, stationary obstacle
first, before advancing to smaller, sparser, possibly moving obstacles. We
further advance to threading one's way among obstacles, while maintaining
orientation. Obstacular environments may include
department stores, furniture stores, parking lots, restaurants, classrooms,
forests, or any cluttered space. Children may have the advantage here, because
their reduced height makes everything around them perspectively
larger and more detectable.
B.
Precision detection exercises
These
can help to develop this skill. For example, have a student pass through a
doorway on repeated occasions while slowly closing the door (thus narrowing the
gap) with each trial. The student needs to determine the breadth of the
opening, and ease through it without touching the sides. Also, having a student
locate, reach for, and touch a pole without fishing for it can foster precision
movement.
C. An
advanced form of this skill
This
involves what we call agrogating one's surroundings.
When threading one's way through dense patches of obstacles and maintaining
one's goal directedness, one does not need to distinguish and identify every
single obstacle in order to be able to go around it. One should learn to chunk
or agrogate the obstacles in order to get better cues
about alignment. This can improve tracking course boundaries, especially if the
boundaries are comprised of disjointed features rather than a solid border. A
group of 3 or 4 tables might become one line. A bush with a tree or bench might
become another line. A sign with a planter box and a mail drop box might become
a third line, and so on - or all can be followed as one long line. It is like
mentally drawing a line connecting multiple points; one can't take a line very
well with just one point. In this way, the student isn't overwhelmed or
disoriented by each obstacle, or lost between or among obstacles.
All objects, features, and events in space are constructed
of dimension (height, breadth), location (distance, laterality, elevation), and
density (solid, sparse, absorption). (See IV.) We can use this language to help
students describe what they are hearing. A pole, for instance, is tall,
uniformly narrow, and solid. A bush is sparse, broader, and short. A tree is
narrow and solid near the bottom, but becomes broad and sparse with increased
elevation; its breadth and laterality increase. Stairs are solid and near
toward the bottom, but get further away with elevation. Here is where stimulus
association, clarification, and comparison can really help students to
understand what they're hearing, and learn to register and describe subtler
characteristics. The question, "what does this remind you of,"
(association) can often stimulate realization about an event being beheld. Sometimes
densely pact foliage will register as solid, because
of the strong reflection of acoustic energy, until it is directly compared with
something solid.
A student can learn to describe and image multiple events
and layers of the environment. An example might be a bush in front of a wall,
or a tree behind a fence, with a wall building behind that. The student should
be encouraged to describe what she can hear most clearly, clarify that image,
then concentrate on other elements. It's all in awareness of depth and distance
cues, combined with distinctions in density. Distinctions in density may be
likened to color contrast perception. Density distinctions can serve to make
some objects really stand out from others. "What is close to you? What
seems further away? How are they different?" Then, given what the student
describes of the entire scene, what is their overall impression? "What is
the picture? What are we looking at?" In our experience, more recently
blinded people may be better at the imaging, the overall picture, even if their
actual perceptions are more dull than students blind
early in life. We believe this is because they have a lot of visual experience
of the way scenes are arranged in the world. A long blinded person may be able
to describe a scene quite accurately in terms of its characteristics, but still
not be able to identify the object or scene the way one who has "seen it all" can. Of
course, blind kids who were free and encouraged to explore their environment
prolifically can usually identify scenes quite well.
Here, we put it all together. Ultimately, we want to foster
students' ability to establish orientation and direct themselves through space.
We move through the environment in a goal directed way, registering and
processing all the elements.
A.
Street crossing:
The
student can learn to register elements part way or all the way across a street,
and use this information as a kind of beacon to guide movement while crossing.
It is like crossing to a wall, except that we are processing other stimuli
(traffic) as well. The attention is NEVER taken away from the traffic; that
must be the primary cue. But, sonar goal direction can be closely secondary. We
start with quieter streets first, then move to noisy. Sonar and sound shadowing
can also help to register quiet cars at rest, and warn against large quiet
vehicles in motion. It isn't necessarily the complete answer to "what do
we do with silent cars", but it can provide an additional layer of warning
and protection.
B.
Crossing a parking lot:
This is
a combination of orienting toward an object (a far off building) and
negotiating obstacles, both stationary and moving. Once we near the building,
other features of the building can be determined to help us direct our course
to the entrance. The entrance is often located in an alcove. Of course, there
may also be other auditory cues suggestive of the entrance.
C. Self Orientation:
Students
can learn to orient themselves to any new area. The exercise might go something
like this:
1.
Choose a large, complex space - a park, school or college campus, transit
station, playground, or shopping center.
2.
Establish a highly audible, distinctive point of reference, or point of
departure. This is often a large alcove or corner where two buildings meet. It
should be detectable from 50 feet away or so.
3.
The students practice leaving the point of reference, and locating three to
five distinct elements of the environment. They should be distinctive from each
other. Student may touch them for varification, but
should identify them, or at least describe them first. The student should then
return to the point of reference, then go back to locate and identify each of
the elements they had found. Students should not just keep to pathways, but
should be encouraged or even required (as part of the exercise) to cut across
open space. (That's where the most fun is.) Objects might include distinctive
trees or poles, park benches, trashcans, pavilions, fences, retaining walls,
other buildings of unique character, steps, bushes or hedges and other plants,
distinctive arrangements of objects, a particular vehicle in a nearby lot, etc.
The student should be encouraged to repeat the exercise with larger numbers of
elements or different elements - not more than 10, but the elements should be
further and further from the point of reference. Ultimately, the student will
establish other key points of reference relative to each other, and objects or
features of smaller detail relative to those. Students may use other aids to
help, such as a compass. The student may also make occasional use of public
assistance if they've lost their bearings in returning to the reference point.
Engagement of public assistance is an acceptible
means of wayfinding. However, for sonar exercises, we
encourage use of sonar as the primary means of information gathering and self direction. So, we ask that engagement of public
assistance be kept to a minimum at first, until we find the sonar sense
developing. Obviously, if the student continues to struggle with this advanced
despite all instructional efforts, mutual engagement of public assistance can
become the primary means of wayfinding for some
students. This could even be a great GPS exercise where students practice
mapping their environment. In fact, a very advanced student may create a
tactile map of what they find. This process can be applied to orient oneself
confidently and enjoyably to any type of space.
It may be that different people try different exercises. Not
everyone will be good at or necessarily want to participate in every exercise.
A.
Refined feature discrimination and location:
1.
Various, distinct objects are held by someone while the echolocater
discerns the differences and key characteristics, with a view toward
identification if possible. dis The echolocater then touches each object to align the auditory
image with the tactual one. Then, the echolocater is
presented again with the objects randomly, and must identify.
2.
Similar to the last, but objects are hung from the ceiling of a large room. Echolocater must locate and describe each object, with a
view toward identification if possible. Then, echolocater
touches each one, and must then relocate each one as requested by the
instructor.
B.
Target practice:
Targets
of various sizes and concavities are erected, and echolocater
must challenge himself to hit various targets from various distances, either by
throwing a ball or using a water gun. Ben Underwood really was able to shoot
hoops without a sound source on the basket from about 10 or 15 feet with about
75% accuracy.
C.
Scene representation:
Present
the echolocater with a scene with which he is not
familiar. He must draw or somehow represent the scene before him.
D.
Bicycling:
We get
our hands on some mountain style, cruiser, and/or BMX freestyle bikes, and some
small to mid sized helmets. We will also need some
zip ties or cable ties.
1.
We find a large, open space with some widely space obstacles, and preferably
some buildings. School grounds, high school parkinglot,
or church parking lot can work. We practice riding around the area, detecting,
circumnavigating, and avoiding the objects and features. Often, we start by
riding back and forth along a building line before venturing out among the
obstacles. Eventually, we arrange an array of human obstacles for the riders to
rider through.
2.
We tao the bike show into a residential neighborhood
where people ride around at their leisure, remaining straight in the street,
turning corners, U-turns, riding up to and stopping just before a curb, and
turning into driveways.
3.
If we can get our hands on some tandems, we practice same as above, but
piloting a tandem.
4.
For folks who do not or cannot apply FlashSonar to
bike riding in our time frame, and who still want to try their hand at solo
riding, we place a zip tie on the rear fork of someone's bicycle so that it
creates a sound beacon. Then, the individual can follow, we still controlling
his own bike.
Some of these exercises, particularly the last few, can be
quite conducive to student groups. Students can help each other to register
object characteristics and identify objects, image scenes and discuss what is
perceived, and actively find their way around new spaces. The group energy
often helps and encourages students to reach heights they might not otherwise
reach. The group dynamic can serve as a tremendously motivating process. It's
very interesting and powerful to observe a group of students come to consensus
about what they perceive, and how best to find their way.
A. Cane
Msers: For cane users, it is our experience that the
program is most effective when conducted with the student using their cane. At
first, we separated auditory and cane training, but have sense found that
combining them has best results. It is true that the student may find the
exercises easier without the cane, but we feel that for most students the pay off is usually greater and speedier if the cane is used
from the beginning. It can be quite frustrating for both student and instructor
to have students perform the exercises well without the cane, only to have
their hard earned performance fall apart when the cane is re-introduced. Use of
the cane facilitates self directed discovery and, for
most students, there is much to be said about the stimulating affects of self directed
discovery on perceptual development.
B.
Partial Vision: With regard to partial vision, we do not make a regular
practice of blindfolding children. We believe that partial vision, as a
component of the perceptual system, deserves and warrants attention, often very
specific attention. Unlike many, we are strong believers in visual efficiency.
We do not believe that "people do not need to be taught how to see."
There
are often situations when degrees or quality of partial vision simply require
integration of nonvisual skills and perceptions in order to recover and enhance
a quality of self directed achievement comparable to ones peers. What we call the "visual system"
occupies about 403people of the brain, and seems to be the default system for
spatial processing. What we call the "visual system". is really an imaging system, that can be recruited to
construct dynamic, operational images from nonvisual inputs. This can happen
naturally without specialized instruction or therapy, but for many reasons, it
often does require assistance and support to do so. Anyway, even though the
imaging system can and does integrate multisensory input for image
construction, the nature of its neurology tends to favor visual input, and that
is usually where the imaging system defaults. This may not be a problem for
standard, day to day functioning for your typical, run in the mill sighted
person, but it can be a real problem for one who's degree or quality of visual
input isn't up to the task - isn't quite enough to make the wheels turn
properly, so to speak, or to use another analogy, not quite enough data to
allow the computer to process properly - whichever you prefer. Now, the imaging
system may really need some help to construct these images, and this help will
probably come from increasing support from nonvisual perception and skill.
However,
since the imaging system tends to default to visual input, it may be necessary,
and we have often found it so, to isolate some or all of the nonvisual skills
and perceptual training from visual input. We call it "isolate, then
integrate." FlashSonar is one but only one very
good example of when a perceptual process really needs to be isolated from
visual input in order to give it any chance of developing. Students simply do
not develop FlashSonar or many other skills when you
have the visual system grabbing at visual information, often erroneously,
thereby usurping, short circuiting, disrupting, or whatever, the development of
other areas of integrated perception. It may and often does become prudent to to offer experiences of visual occlusion during portions of the
perceptual training. These spans of visual occlusion may provide opportunities
for nonvisual perceptual capacities to take hold and grow, where they might
otherwise not.
Visual
functioning generally interferes with sonar information as it tends to dominate
perceptual attention (for better or worse). However, it is surprising how
motivated many partially sighted students can be to learning FlashSonar. They often know just how dependent they are on
the little vision they have, and how fragile that dependency is. When the
lights go down, they go down hard on these students.
FlashSonar seems to be particularly helpful to students who
have visual field loss, as students can learn to use it to fill in these gaps.
For these students, FlashSonar will often serve to
allow the students to register objects or features outside their visual field.
Then, they may bring their vision to bear on the target to gather more
information. This method can reduce the need for constant visual scanning.
For
partially sighted students, we find that it seems more effective to isolate,
and then give specific attention to integrating. During auditory image
training, the visual system is literally adapting to process nonvisual
information to extract spatial images. For this to happen, the visual system
seems to need a period of disconnect from the eyes. It seems to be hard wired
to receive and process information from the eyes by default, so it needs to be
insulated from the eyes in order to foster new connections and operative
pathways for nonvisual integration and image construction.
Since
partially sighted students are using their vision most of the time between
lessons, they tend to learn auditory imaging more slowly. However, they
sometimes have an advantage in that they may have visual images to draw upon in
learning how to image nonvisually. In other words,
the imaging system seems to be able to apply previous visual experience to
developing a nonvisual imaging process.
Students
with light perception or visual memories often confuse sonar images with visual
images. They seem to "see" what they hear. They may say: "I can
still see the wall," even under a blindfold. The brain can interpret sonar
sensation in a visual reference - causing crosstalk between the sensory
channels. This is called cross modal processing, and may also be referred to as
synesthetia. With the exception of very young
children, it may be helpful to students when we explain to them the difference
between what they see, and what they hear.
The
strategic use of blindfolds and isolating headphones or earplugs can be helpful
here. Some with partial vision will strain their eyes. But when their use of
echoes is brought to their attention and refined, they may find it less
necessary to strain. This is especially beneficial to those with fragile eye
conditions.
Our
practice under such circumstances is to offer occlusion about 75 3people of the
time, more or less depending on lots of factors. The isolation phases allow
nonvisual skills to take root, the integration phases allow opportunity for
multi-sensory processing to develop into truly integrated perception. If the
isolation phases are denied the student, the nonvisual capacities that may
indeed be necessary to support self directed
achievement may not take root and grow. Likewise, if the integration phases are
denied the student,
then the integration process may not reach critical mass, as it were, and never
quite come together.
We have
observed that some students who go through mandatory occlusion training at some
of the emersion centers do struggle with visual integration, because the
integration phase doesn't sometimes seem to be instructor supported. We know
this from conversations we've had with NOMC'S as well as COMS'S and some
students. Also, visual adaptation skills may be lacking, such as monocular use
and visual scanning. That question has been raised to suggest that maybe this
tradition emerged partly out of blind instructors leveling the playing field,
although there is much more to it. As blind instructors ourselves, we find
visual efficiency and integration training to be quite challenging, and we can
see how many blind instructors would gravitate away from it, much as sighted
instructors often gravitate away from the finer points of auditory training.
This isn't by any stretch to implicate all blind or sighted instructors in
either category; it may just be a tendency. We appreciate visual training, as
we regard working with the perceptual system as a kind of giant puzzle.
Now,
speaking to occlusion - we do not force occlusion on students. If we force
occlusion on kids, we lose all hope of developing rapport, and instructional
efficacy goes out the window. If we try to force occlusion on adults - well,
pretty much the same thing happens. What's the point of that? However, so not fair or respectful to the
student not to offer occlusion opportunities as a potentially invaluable
benefit to perceptual development.
In this
connection, we have developed many ways to support students to at least give
occlusion training a fair try. And no, this doesn't include threats or brute
force - both of which we have witnessed. Many older kids like it, and younger
kids generally adapt to it quickly.
We tend
to use sunglasses blocked off in various ways, because students often like them
and will accept them, and because they are generally more comfortable than
blindfolds. Blindfolds can feel quite stifling, and be a real drag in the heat
and humidity. Although wrap-around sunglasses or fish-eye sunglasses may be
used, we do not concern ourselves too much with a bit of extraneous light
sifting occasionally in from the sides. We see little reason to turn the lights
completely out for all students all the time, especially when the likelihood of
any given student going totally blind is remote. Should this be a likely
prognosis for a student, then we may encourage wrap-around sunglasses or even
industrial safety goggles.
1.
Diffused Occlusion. Perhaps this is our favorite approach. We take several
pairs of sunglasses. The student chooses which one they like. Often, offering a
choice just makes the whole experience more intriguing and palatable, and perou the student places some stock in fashion. We lean
toward the ones with big lenses or the wrap around kind, but not exclusively
so. We have blocked off the back with criss-crossed,
thin strips of tape. The idea here is to allow light into the student, but to
break up the image enough that it can't be useful. This may take a little trial
and error, since many students with very low vision are quite good at
processing visual fragments. What may be incomprehensible to a fully sighted person looking through
diffused occlusion may still make some sense someone accustomed to using very
little vision. Also, we want to ensure that this type of occlusion doesn't back
fire, in the sense of prompting the student to have to concentrate that much
more on visual fragment processing. But, with a little time, we can get it
right. As long as there is some light coming in, the student, even very young
students, will often accept occlusion, and even consider it a game. Students
with very low vision often hardly seem to notice that they now can't use their
vision anymore, and may adapt very quickly to nonvisual development. Some will
say that it's less confusing and more relaxing to operate this way. Over time,
if we want, we may add a little piece of tape here and there, until eventually
the glasses are completely blocked out, and the student hardly even notices or
cares. Again, this is done often in combination with nonoccluded
training for integration purposes.
2.
A World of Color. We use sunglasses again, perhaps totally blocked off, but
with colored tape to make the world a little more interesting. Eyes that can see
often really don't like seeing nothing, and those of us who have never seen
nonetheless hold a certain respect and sensitivity to this. We may call it
"the world of pink", for kids who like pink. Or, maybe we have
different glasses with different colors that the student may choose from for
that day. We want solid colors; not patterns or anything busy.
3.
Occlude the Instructor. Students will often accept occlusion if the instructor
is also willing to wear occlusion. As a rule, we generally do not try to
encourage students to do anything that we would not be willing to do, or at
least try, ourselves. For example, if we use bean bags to help support better
posture, we also carry the bean bags, or whatever it is. So, if the student
feels better if we wear occlusion along with them, why not, at least to start
with. Boys like to play pirates, and the blindfold becomes an eye patch, except
we use two eye patches, or we patch the eye that sees better.
Many
sighted instructors, particularly non-NOMC'S, may feel
at a disadvantage here if they are unable or uncomfortable to function with
their vision fully occluded. This is understandable. Perhaps you give yourself
a cheat whole to look through if you feel this is ethical, or perhaps you
negotiate with your student to allow you an easement.
4.
Darkened Environments. Maybe we conduct some lessons in a dark room, like a
gym, auditorium, or multipurpose room, but with all the lights turned off and
windows shaded - or lessons at night in a dark area. Obviously, lesson options
may be limited under such conditions, but there's still much that can be done.
C.
Recently Blinded Adults: Working with recently blind adults as opposed to those
blind for a long time: Although the
basic principals are pretty much the same for all
students, there may be some differences working with recently blind adults, as
opposed to those blind for a long time. For adults, research has shown, and it
is our experience, that neuralogical adaptation seems
to take place, at least in part, over about 5 years. For children, this may
occur in only a year or two. This adaptation is as if the nonvisual channels
have warmed up. However, these channels may be sluggish for recently blind
adults. The situation may be somewhat reversed for newly blind adults, vs.
congenitally blind people. In the former, the imaging system may be in tact, craving and reaching for information, ready to
assimilate it into a dynamic, operational image, as it was accustomed to doing
with vision. Yet, the nonvisual channels through which to gather this
information may not be forth-coming as yet. On the otherhand,
congenitally blind people may have moderately active channels for conveying
nonvisual information, more or less, but if the student is relatively dependent
or restricted, the imaging systems may be under-developed. For recently blind
people, the full complement of abilities should be learnable to a functional
level of proficiency. But, this will likely take longer and require more
diligence on the part of the student. Developing these nonvisual channels may
need to be addressed with care so as not to discourage the student. However,
within a few hours, many students report and express an "ahha!" moment in which the echoes flash at them. They
often report this as visual, and sometimes become quite delighted at the
experience. Here they are seeing something when they had resigned themselves to
never seeing anything again. We often foster this development by addressing
their strengths which usually lie in an in tact
imaging system. We will provide two examples:
First,
during a workshop, we worked with a blind woman who had lost her vision only a
few months before. She was still quite emotional about it, but she was very
motivated and enthusiastic. It was a struggle to foster development of even the
basic skills. She was one who didn't warm up to the panel exercises. For
sensitization work, we had to clarify those stimuli by using actual walls and
corners. One of the exercises involved having her walk along a library book shelf,
and stop where the shelves were empty (which gave off a decidedly hollower sound. If memory serves (this was 7 years ago),
this was her first "ahha!" moment. Her
exclaiming "ahha!" is what gave this
technical term its name. Though she made huge progress and expressed her
appreciations most wholeheartedly, she did not reach the more advanced
abilities. The audience of attendees asked two congenitally blind rehab
counselors from among them if they wouldn't mind undergoing some training in
the advanced skills, to which they graciously agreed. Here's where the imaging
differences were demonstrated. When it came to auditory scene analysis, the
congenitally blind adults were good at detecting and describing various
stimuli, but couldn't articulate the scene. Whereas the recently blind woman,
once she heard the others describe the stimuli, could do so. For instance, when
looking at someone's front yard, the congenitally blind adults might say,
"There's something broad, tall, and sparse immediately in front of me.
Behind it, there seems to be something tall but not so broad, maybe broader
near the top. It sounds more solid. Then, behind that and further away, there
seems to be something large and very solid." But, they often couldn't
hazard a guess as to what they were looking at from a "big picture"
perspective. The recently blind woman would then chime in and say,
"Wouldn't this maybe be a fence with a tree behind it, and maybe someone's
house behind that?"
On
another occasion, we worked with a teenaged boy blind for one year. We began
with him by having him show us around his neighborhood in which he'd grown up.
He was instructed to call to mind everything around him as vividly as he could
remember. "Take me on a tour, and describe everything as if you were seeing
it." This process seemed to stimulate his receptivity to the opening of
nonvisual channels, and we posit that this may be true for many. We are not
afraid to get very visual with our recently blind clients, while at the same
time applying the exercise activities to open nonvisual channels.
D.
Congenitally blind kids: When working
with congenitally blind kids, we do not spend much time specifically on body
concepts, backwards chaining (tactile landmarking),
or focusing on the minutia of things like doors, chairs, or whatever else we
might assume the child doesn't know "because they can't see it." Our
focus is on child directed (adult facilitated) discovery. Daniel writes:
"My spatial movement skills as a boy were nearly impeccable, as were most
of my gross and fine motor skills. I could find my way around anywhere, and
take anything apart and put it back together. Yet, I probably would have scored
low on things like body concept, had there been anyone to assess such a thing
(God forbid). When I swung my arms hard enough as a 5 year old, my hands
touched something behind me. I don't know how long it took me to figure out
that my hands were just touching each other. Until the age of about 6, I was
absolutely convinced that the deep end of the pool had no bottom at all, and
would have screaming fits if they tried to make me go there. I didn't know my
right from my left till I was 8, and only then because I'd broken my right ring
finger and had it splinted for a month. I couldn't tie my shoes till I was 9. I
believed that there was a hill at every stop light. (Ever notice the car seems
to pitch forward when you put on the brakes?) Yet, my travel and orientation
skills were top notch even at 3 years old. In time, I just figured out through
natural consequence how the world worked. Sure, there were things explained to
me from time to time, but there was little in the way of formal concept
instruction. I mostly figured things out by my own self-directed discovery,
which I was highly encouraged and supported to do."
Not
only do we not think that specialized body concept training is particularly
important, we don't really think there's any way of assessing it properly, or
determining what the results of such assessments actually mean. A big part of
the problem here is that most assessments of blind people are designed
according to educated guess work by sighted professionals with little or no
input from the blindness perspective. The resulting guesswork and its
implications are, therefore, questionable in our opinion.
It
seems to be assumed a priori that congenitally blind kids will have problems
with body and other spatial concepts. We have not necessarily found this to be
so when the blind child has plenty of opportunity to explore and discover
through his own self direction. This is the basis of many of our lessons with
blind kids, and of our work with their families. It is in no way based on the
things they shouldn't be doing, but on the freedoms they should be enjoying.
There
are certain issues of a social nature that do tend to pertain to congenitally
blind children which deserve discussion, together with some perception based,
discovery strategies:
1.
Directed Reaching. For sighted infants,
vision provides a feed forward sensory mechanism that allows the infant to
anticipate what may be around it. Directed reaching occurs in response to
visual input. It serves to allow the infant to investigate and better
understand the visual stimuli. The visual stimuli also gives the infant a sense
of what to expect when reaching occurs. Although what to expect needs to be
learned, so quickly learned, and it is
learned in part incidentally by watching others even before the infant actually
succeeds in reaching. Vision, then, provides an anticipatory sense of what is
to be reached, even before contact is made with the items being reached for.
With
blind infants, vision is not present to serve as a feed forward sense allowing
for anticipation and self direction. As discussed in
VII-A, directed reaching or discovery reaching occurs quite variably among
congenitally blind infants. Auditory stimuli and incidental, tactile
encouragement can stimulate reaching for many blind infants, rather directed or
discovery in nature. Both are useful in helping the infant develop his
relationship with his world. Some blind infants can remain fiercely fearless
and unwaveringly inquisitive.
However,
for many other blind infants, auditory stimulation may not be enough to
stimulate directed reaching. The lack of visual stimuli may cause many blind
infants not to be motivated to reach for items in their surroundings. Also, a
certain anxiety may be present about taking the initiative to reach into
unknown space. Perhaps the infant just has an anxious personality. Or, perhaps
he attempted to reach or move, only to be met with shocking or otherwise
negative consequences, such as an unexpected head bump, or coming abruptly into
contact with an unpleasant stimulus that was not anticipated due to lack of visual
preview. In such cases, some blind infants may learn to remain immobile, lest
their hand, foot, or any other part of their body become implicated into
unpleasant and up-setting circumstances. In such cases, many blind infants may
simply remain quite still, just listening intently to what is around them, or
retreating into their own head.
Caregivers child a case tend to manipulate the infant's body
to interact with the environment. In essence, we guide the infant's reaching
and exploration in the hopes of engaging him in the world. However, this
process can quickly degenerate into a dependency of the infant on others to
govern its movements through space, and can serve to establish anxious feelings
about self directed reaching and movement.
Early
cane training provides blind infants with a sense of being able to probe the
environment around him. It serves a similar purpose of feed forward
anticipation as vision does for sighted infants.
To
support directed reaching, it is helpful initially when bringing items to the
infant, to lightly touch the item to the infant's hand. This is just to
stimulate interest in the item. Once the infant realizes that the item is
approaching him, stop short of the infant's so the will be encouraged to reach
for it. Over time, one can
hold the item further away to encourage a full reach. With items
such as a pacifier or drinking cup, one can tap on the item, causing it to make
a sound that will come to characterize the item. Or, one can attach a bell to
the item.
2.
Walking and cruising. Near all children
cruise along furniture and other surfaces in the development of walking.
Sighted infants hold on for support for as long as they need to, yet always
striving to move away from support. Before long, they are walking unsupported.
Blind infants cruise as a means of physical support, but this physical support
may also come to serve to form the parameters that define their world. Thusly,
they may come to depend on physical surface as a means of maintaining a sense
of direction and purpose, and this becomes their comfort and their
understanding of the world. In such cases, movement through space become
linking to contact with physical surface, and the prospect of self guided movement apart from physical space may become
unimaginable for many congenitally blind children.
One
convention we definitely avoid is encouragement to trail, square off, or heavy
reliance on tactile landmarking. As noted, the blind
infant is already in danger of developing a strong dependency on physical
surfaces for his mobility. To further encourage this process is to establish it
into a fixed pattern of dependency that becomes almost impossible to
break. Instead, we encourage the infant to hard and respond to the echoes from
large surfaces and features, such as walls, inside and outside corners, and
openings. These are usually easy for the blind toddler to learn to hear, and
doing so can quickly stimulate confidence of movement in free space.
3.
Infant Scaffolding. Sighted infants are generally scaffolded,
supported, nurtured, encouraged, and celebrated to move through their
development into greater and greater competence and self
efficacy. Their first reach, first step, first jump, first throw. As the
infant's competence improves, scaffolding is withdrawn, or modified to
encourage more and more self efficacy.
Blind
infants are also scaffolded, but the ongoing nature
of it often progresses differently. The blind infant may not be driven in the
same way to extend and expand competence and self efficacy.
For a blind infant, scaffolding may easily become enabling to the extent that
the blind infant comes to depend more, not less, on the scaffolding process.
Their capacity to engage the environment becomes predicated on the facilitation
of others. In this case, scaffolding is not withdrawn reciprocally to
developing competence, so competence may not be driven to develop. The result
is a cycle of learned helplessness in which the blind child becomes ever more
dependent on others to govern his relationship with the world around him.
This
dependency process may be exacerbated in the case of medical fragility common
among congenitally blind infants. In this case, the infant really does require
considerable care and nurturing, but the pattern of nurturing may become fixed,
and not allow the infant to develop self efficacy.
What started out as a genuine requirement of care lapses into a habit of
enabling and dependency.
Here,
the family may simply need some gentle, understanding counseling to
ease up on the amount of scaffolding being given. The philosophy and approach
outlined here tends to show immediate impact. It isn't a situation of "if
you do these things in just this way, someday, you'll get results." The
approach is very relaxed and flexible, and the results are often immediate.
This provides the family sound impetus and encouragement to take a more
progressively developmental approach with the child.
E.
Working with very young children: We're not much of believers in instruction
that is very structured. We take a perception/discovery approach, rather than a
skills based approach. This tack seems to work particularly well with very
young children. The youngest child we've taught cane training to was 18 months.
The youngest child we've taught FlashSonar to was 2.
However, We don't believe there's a minimum age. We
might ask ourselves "how young can a child start to learn to see."
The answer is that children start to learn to see from birth. Likewise,
learning to "see" without sight can begin at birth with the right
support. In general, we would say that experiential lessons in discovery are
most effective with children. Engage children in what they like to do, which is
usually play, and work sonar experiences into these. Also, we can't emphasize enough
how critical and successful we have found working with the family. Family buy
in can increase the student's success 10 fold. The following few examples may
be helpful:
1.
Find the box: Very young toddlers or infants often like to crawl into or under
things. Find a large container, maybe a rubbermade
storage container, or an open cardboard, and position the child near it. Entice
the child by talking or making funny noises into it to get their attention.
"See how boomy it sounds. Rrrrummmm."
Then, see if you can get the child to find it themselves. The first time should
be easy, because they heard you talk into it. But then, place the child at
different distances and different angles, and encourage them to find it.
2. Stimulate the child's interest in container
play. Bring out several different containers, different sizes and materials.
Play with him. Encourage him to drop different things into the containers to
see what kinds of sounds they make. Drop the containers to hear what sounds
they make. Sing or make noises into the
containers. Such activities can serve to
stimulate further interest in the auditory environment, just as visual games
and bright colors can help stimulate visual development for sighted children. The child may develop favorites among the
containers. Encourage him to give names
to the containers. When he develops interest, hold a container near him, open
side toward him, and encourage him to find it by making noises. In time, he
will learn to find it by clicking.
3. Auditory Space Recognition. Carry the child
from room to room in his house, and encourage him to learn what room he's in
based on its sound characteristics. This
is best done from the center of the room.
Have him name the room. It
doesn't necessarily matter what term he uses, as long as it's consistent. But, it could be a good way to develop
vocabulary.
4. Stimulate interest in crawling into or under
things - a table, into a cupboard, very large boxes, wherever. You can make this into a sort of hide and
seek game. Make noises with him. See if
he takes interest in the auditory environment in or under these things. You can
do this same thing when you enter various environments that have different
sound characteristics, such as the lift, an echoey
hallway, or a large cathedral.
5.
Hide and seek. For older children, we might set up a game of hide and seek.
This works well for groups of blind kids. The rules are that one child counts
to whatever while the others hide. They must hide near, under, or behind
something that is at least as big as they are. This means that they have to
find objects of proper
size. Then, the seeker must "look" for objects of a certain size, and
check if anyone is there. If the seeker has trouble, she can ask for a hint.
The hiders must clap their hands or click there
tongues once, and the seeker needs to keep track of where she heard the signals
coming from. You can set a limit on how many hints the seeker can ask for. We
usually put the limit on three, but more may be appropriate. It may be helpful,
especially with younger kids, to give them a chance to exercise their skills to explore the area first. This
can be a good motivater to explore. We've found that
kids generally very much enjoy this game.
It
also works well for kids with partial vision, as it encourages visual scanning.
We have played with a mix of sighted, partially sighted, and blind kids. In
this case, it may be especially helpful to teach blind kids the concept of
keeping the object they're hiding near between them and the seeker. As they
hear the seeker approaching the object near which they're hiding, they should
learn to quietly move around the object such that the object remains between
them and the seeker, so that they remain hidden from the sight of the seeker.
Of course, if the seeking is scanning effectively, he will more likely discover
the hider, but the hider should, nonetheless, learn the strategy of maximizing
his chances, as well as learn visual concepts.
6.
Audified Ball play. You can audify
a ball quite easily by placing it into a spare grocery bag, and tieing the handles together loosely around the ball. Then,
we may bounce the ball against the wall, and intercept it as it comes back. If
the student has to chase after the ball, he must maintain echo awareness to
return to a point within tossing distance from the wall, and square himself so
the wall is in front. Otherwise, the ball will just continue to bounce away eskew.
7.
Explorer. Here, there is no real goal to the lesson, other than to explore. We
find an area or large building that we think will be of interest to the child.
Children often like large buildings with lots of corridors, stairways,
elevators, and rooms of different types. We try our best to find everything
interesting, and we try our best to keep track of where we are. We listen for
differences in our surroundings, and keep track of whether things sound
familiar or different. This exercise can also be performed in an intriguing
outdoor area, such as a park. If this park has a playground or nice trees to
climb, so much the better. In one park, there were large stone monuments, and a
large fountain with steps that went up and around it - quite fascinating to
explore, and wonderful to play hide and seek in.
8.
Counting. Many students like to count things. By using FlashSonar,
students can count poles, parked cars, trees, bushes, or open doorways. To do
this, they need to be able to detect and discriminate what the objects are.
9.
One student liked to ice skate. We practiced having him ice skate around the
rink while keeping track of the outer railing, and listening for others around
him. Another young student liked to ride his tricycle, so we found an area
which had a very long wall, which had some twists and turns in it. He could
ride his tricycle along the wall as much as he liked, and as fast as he liked.
He could even venture away from the wall, as long as he could hear it well
enough to return to it.
Although these exercises are meant for those working with
students to stimulate your own sonar sense, you can do any of these with your
students as beginning exercises.
A.
Procure a large and small wide mouth container. Glass jars are good; seashells
are excellent. Speak into the open air, then into each container. Note how the
containers sound different from the open air, and from each other. Close your
eyes, and have someone hold the containers in front of you as you speak. Try to
hear when the container is in front of you, and which one is the smallest or
largest. Have someone else speak, and, with eyes closed, you guess which
container is which.
B. Hold
the mouths of the containers to your ear. What do you hear from them? Do you
recall the "ocean in the seashell" phenomenon? It is only sound
reflecting inside the container. Can you hear the difference between small and
large containers? Put each container at each ear simultaneously. Can you hear
how each sounds different? With your eyes closed, have someone present the
containers randomly to each ear. Can you tell when the container is present or
absent? Can you tell which container is which, large vs. small?
C.
Position yourself about a foot from a blank wall. Take a deep breath, and, with
closed eyes, pivot your body while slowly exhaling in a "shshsh" sound. What happens to the "shshsh" sound as you turn your face away from the
wall? How about toward the wall? While pivoting, try to hear when you are
facing directly toward the wall. If the "shshsh"
doesn't work for you, try an "aaaaaah"
sound.
D.
Position yourself about 4 feet from the wall. Take a deep breath, and, with
closed eyes, approach the wall while slowly exhaling a "shshsh" or suitable sound. Now, step away from the
wall while exhaling. See if you can bring yourself to within 6 inches of the
wall without touching it. How about 3 inches?
E.
Stand in the middle of a sparsely furnished room with your eyes closed, and
turn slowly while exhaling the "shshsh" or
suitable sound. See if you can locate the a corner.
Begin walking, and see if you can find the corner.
F. In a
car find a residential street with several vehicles parked along it. (A parking
lot will not do for this exercise.) Open the window, and, as you drive, listen
carefully to the sound of the car every time you pass a parked vehicle. The
sound fluctuates. If you can get someone else to drive, try this with closed
eyes, and listen through the passenger window. The effect is more pronounced
here. You may even be able to tell by listening whether the street is heavily
lined with parked cars, or sparsely so.
G. In
an area familiar to you, try walking with a blindfold and long-cane. Try
perceiving things around you by echoes. Do not try to ascertain exact locations
of things, just strive for a sense of things flowing about you as you walk. Try
clicking your tongue. Do you hear the shifting directions and distances of
things as you move among them? Mobility instructors may find that doing this at
least once or twice a week will help them in sonar training with students, and
to comprehend their own cognitive process struggling to integrate nonvisual
information for efficient travel. Your students do this all the time.
H. Try
accompanying your better students under a blindfold in an area familiar to you.
Practice sonar navigation with them. Let them help you. They will love it, and
you will both learn something.