ECHOLOCATION

Another great influence on Samuel, and encouragement to us as parents, was the appearance in his life of Californian, Daniel Kish, founder of World Access for the Blind. 

We met Daniel in 2007 when we heard him speak of his own blindness, and his use of echolocation to achieve truly independent mobility without the need to learn routes or have a Guide Dog present. We were impressed with his skills and the possibilities for Samuel, and a memorable comment he made relating to the fact that every time a sighted person takes a blind persons hand you are potentially taking away their learning as they have no requirement then to explore or understand their environment, and his concept of “no limits”. Daniel met Samuel and they quickly struck up a bond.

Echolocation was not a form of mobility taught at the time in the UK. Samuel was in the infancy of developing his skills but by ‘clicking’ with his mouth and using his cane it enabled him to move with freedom whilst identifying differences in his surroundings. Parked cars, obstructions, or in the school playing field he could tell which direction was open space or the building.

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It’s all about ‘a click and a stick’.

The ‘click’, called Flashsonar is a more technically refined form of echolocation. 

The ‘stick’ is a carbon fibre kevlar composite that telescopes to what we call full length, much longer than the traditional canes for blind persons.

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We remember when Samuel went for a walk in Poole Park with Daniel. A blind boy being escorted by a blind instructor who has never visited the Park before. What could possibly go wrong? As parents we watched from a distance as they negotiated hazards including the lake without any accidents and more importantly without falling in. Another session had them walking round 'Marks & Spencers', Castlepoint going up and down escalators and round the store.

Samuel trained with Daniel on a number of occasions when he visited the UK to develop his echolocation skills. Samuel and Daniel were included in a wonderful documentary in 2008. Channel 5 Extraordinary Animals. The series was about different animals and how their skills could benefit humans. This episode was about Dolphins and echolocation and how it can apply to humans. It helped to promote echolocation for the visually impaired. An excerpt that includes Samuel is shown below.

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After Samuel passed away we took Nick and went for a family holiday to Tenerife. This was a location that a charity had kindly tried to send Samuel in 2008 but due to declining health he never went. Whilst we were in Tenerife we went to a theme park called Loro Park and went to watch the Dolphin Show. Not only was a large part of the dolphin show based around echolocation but that part of the show was also to a background music track which was one of the pieces of music we selected and played at Samuel’s funeral. The three of us looked at each other and did not know whether to laugh, cry or probably both but it was a special moment. 

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DANIEL KISH

https://visioneers.org/daniel-kish/

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Daniel was born 1966 in Montebello, California.  He was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, which is an aggressive cancer of the retina, he lost one eye and then the other by the age of 13 months.

He has developed his echolocation and has incredible independent mobility. He then became the first totally blind person in the United States (and likely the world) to be fully certified as an orientation and mobility specialist – that is, someone hired by the visually impaired to learn how to get around. It was never Daniel’s goal to run a foundation dedicated to the blind. He planned to be a psychologist. But he could not ignore the fact that few blind people enjoyed anything close to his freedom of movement, and he had grown weary of society’s attitude toward the blind.

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So in 2000, he founded World Access for the Blind. One of its missions is to counter every ‘no’ that blind people hear. Blindness, Daniel says, “should be understood by both the blind and the sighted as nothing more than an inconvenience.” World Access for the Blind has used ‘click and a stick’ over 20 years to teach advanced orientation and mobility to over 10,000 blind persons, their families, instructors, and interested members of their communities across the United States and in over 40 other countries.

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World Access for the Blind is now accessed as Visioneers at  https://visioneers.org