Echolocation or the science of seeing with sound | Daniel Kish | TEDxObserver

The brains of people who have been blind since birth or an early age rewire themselves to adapt to the lack of vision, resulting in enhanced compensatory abilities such as a heightened sense of hearing, smell and touch, as well as cognitive functions. The brain can be train to echolocation which is how bats and beluga whales can "see". Researchers have found that when echolocators listen to the echoes of the clicks they produce with their tongue, the part of the brain normally used to see lights up.

At one year old, Daniel was diagnosed with a rare cancer called retinoblastoma, which destroys the retinas. At age 14, his eyes were removed in order to save his life. Now 46, Daniel uses sonar vision by sending sound waves from his tongue that bounce off physical objects and allows him to gauge his whereabouts and navigate the world in remarkable ways. He has dedicated himself to teaching this technique that he calls FlashSonar to a new generation of blind children in America and throughout the world, with the organisation "World Access for the Blind" that he has founded in 2000. He has also earn a Master’s degree in Developmental Psychology and another Master’s in Special Education.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Oh, their American accent
sounds so out of place here!

(Laughter)

I am going to set my own timepiece

because I can't see
the timepiece they have up here.

So I have a Braille PDA here
that I'm just going to set.

And there we are.

And I'll even look at it
from time to time.

When they first invited me here,

they asked if I would need
help up the stage,

up the stairs to the stage,
and after what you've just seen,

I think that would have
been quite unfitting.

(Laughter)

And about this timepiece, they also asked
how I would be able to keep track of time.

That was a good question!

This is how I do it.
It's a Braille timepiece.

It basically just kind of counts off
the seconds as we go.

You call it "a timer" here.

In the States, we call it
a "confidence monitor"

(Laughter)

Now what could inspire less confidence

than watching your time
takeaway second by second,

especially when they only gave you
12 minutes to sell your life story.

So how do I find my way?

Well, that's easy. That's very easy!

You heard me clicking.
They explained that it was a sonar.

The sonar is very much a concept
that we're all familiar with.

Bats use it. Dolphins use it.

And submarine technicians use it.

So that part is easy, I click.

Click ... Click ... Click.

That essentially asks
two questions of the environment.

It's a "sonar call".

Scientists call it a "call" or they'll say
that I'm interrogating the environment.

The two questions are:
"where are you?" and "what are you?"

So those are the two key questions
embedded in every click.

(Click)

The more clearly
we can ask those questions,

the more clearly will
the environment respond.

Now that pretty much answers the question
"how do I know where I'm going?"

If that was all to the story,
I could step off stage right now

and be done with plenty of time to spare,

but would you feel ... satisfied?

Would you feel edified if I did that?

Not so much!

So the real question

is "What is the point?
What is the purpose of all of this?"

If I were the only person who could
flap my arms and fly to the moon,

would it matter?

Really, I've been all over the world.

They flew me out from Los Angeles
yesterday, I arrived yesterday.

I was in the States for three days,

back from a seven week tour of Queensland
and New South Wales Australia.

Prior to that, I was in Austria,
Germany, Romania and Holland.

I've been to over,
well nearly 25 different countries,

half a dozen of them
in the last few months.

Why?

What would my claim to fame really be?

So why don't we go ahead
and show the first clip.

I have a clicker, just in case
no one's paying attention back there.

(Laughter) Okay.

(Video) (Clicks)

Lucas: Yeah!

(Applause)

Okay.

That's not really my claim to fame.

(Laughing) I did not teach this young boy
how to play basketball.

I can't play basketball
myself - it's worth rubbish -

but I taught him how to find the basket.

I taught him how to find his way around.

You heard him clicking.

I have developed means
of teaching people

how to find freedom in their lives.

The focus is on blind individuals,

but we're all blind
in one way or another.

We could all use a bit
of direction, myself included,

in how to find more freedom in our lives.

Now this young boy's name is Lucas.

Lucas was perhaps seven
or eight at the most,

when this film was taken.

His parents contacted me
when he was four years old.

They wanted their son who was born blind
to have more freedom in his life.

He would not let go
of someone's hand, okay?

He would trail walls, kind of feel his way
through his environment,

but that was about the extent
of his freedom at that time.

His parents wanted something simple.

At first, they wanted him to have a cane.

I've got a cane, you saw me
come up the stairs with it.

You saw me using it coming
onto the stage. A cane is a great stuff.

It will help find things, okay,

that would not be possible

or certainly would not
be comfortable without one.

So they could not get
the local authorities

to teach him how to use a cane.

They couldn't even get the local
authorities to provide him with a cane -

well, eventually they did
but not to teach him.

I'll use the UK as an example,
but this is happening all over the world.

In most parts of the world,

blind children aren't even
provided with a cane

until their; say, eight years old.

What is provided in some cases
prior to the age of eight

is what I call "dependency conditioning,"

systematically training
our blind individuals

how to be dependent on others
either to guide them

or to modify the environment
to be "blind friendly."

That is not the kind
of world that we live in, okay.

So the first thing I did
was I taught Lucas

some very simple,
very straightforward techniques

of how to use a cane.

Everyone humor me for a moment,
close your eyes please.

Close your eyes
for just a moment, everyone.

Now assuming that you tried
to open your eyes and couldn't -

don't open your eyes -

assuming that you tried to open
your eyes and couldn't, okay,

the lights are out, your eyes won't open,

but eventually you need
to find your way out of here, okay,

something's got to happen for you to move,

something's got to happen
for you to start to lead your life.

So on a scale of zero to ten -
zero being not at all -

just think about this:

how confident would you feel
to move around your environment?

How confident would you feel
to be able to get up out of your seat

and start finding your way
toward the door?

Okay?

Probably most of you fall
somewhere between zero and three.

Very few of you would probably
be thinking three, okay.

Some of you might know
the place better than others.

But imagine now, keeping your eyes closed,

imagine now you suddenly had a stick,

something no more
complicated than a stick.

Would you feel more confident?

Would you feel more comfortable
being able to get up

and safely find your way toward the door?

Raise your hand if you would,

if you feel like you'd feel
more comfortable.

Okay, let's see ...

(Clicks of the tongue)

(Laughter)

I heard a bunch of hands go up, okay.

(Laughter)

All right, it's that simple.

The use of something
as simple as a stick

which actually does have some technique
to it, some training behind it

but it's very simple and yet,
that simple sense of safety,

that simple sense of taking
ownership of our environment,

is not being provided
to our young blind children.

Okay, now let me give you
just a quick example

of a more sophisticated system

that works in addition to
the very simple system of the long cane.

I will use a flat panel

that I just happen to have in my backpack.

Okay, this isn't an advert for Apple.

It just happens to be
what I have available.

I'm going to turn my back
on the audience.

I know that's a no-no,
but it's got to happen.

If we all close our eyes again, please,

I'm going to give a couple of very simple
demonstrations, very simple,

of a system that allows
for the kinds of freedom

that we are able to make
available for students.

So I'm going to make a "shhh" sound.
It's going to be regular and consistent.

And I'm going to pass this "panel"
I'll call it, in front of my face,

so you'll hear it going by. Listen!

("Shhh" sound)

Okay, now if you open your eyes
for just a moment,

this is all I was doing.

So Lucas can learn very simply
to use the click of his tongue.

Click, click, click,

he's asking the back board
of the basket "Where are you?"

He can detect its edges ...
shhh ... and its surface,

and that's what he's learned
to aim for. It's that simple.

Now how does he know
how far he is away?

So close your eyes again, please,

and I'll do the same
"shhh" sound ... shhh ...

... but I'm going to move this panel
toward me and away from me,

and you'll hear the change
of the sound as I do so.

("Shhh" sound)

Okay, so you can open your eyes.

Same deal!

Lucas can hear where the backboard
is relative to his position

both by listening for
the position left-right wise

and also by listening to its distance.

If I'm riding a bicycle and I'm coming up
to say a large solid object

or maybe even not so large
of a solid object,

I hear that "shhh" coming.

The only difference is
that I'm clicking instead of shushing,

but the the effect
is essentially the same.

Okay.

Our interest is in making this available
for blind people everywhere,

and also making the point

that if blind people can find
their way through life

by using a method such as this,

then any of us can look at our own lives,

look at the darkness
that occurs in all of our lives,

and ask ourselves what can we do
to find our way through that darkness

because there's always a way.

And that for me is really
the most important lesson

of why it is that I'm up here.

And John, if you're moseying
up here on stage,

no cue subtle enough will let me
know that you're there, so ...

(Laughter)

... don't even bother!

(Cheers) (Applause)