Email

Print

Guide dogs and canes are just two means by which a blind person can get around. But there is a more modern and empowering way that the visually impaired can navigate their surroundings and that's through a technique called human sonar or echolocation. We hear about animals – especially bats - using this method to get a sense of their environment – or as a form of communication, but how can humans especially blind people use it? That's what we found out today at an introductory workshop. Courtney Weatherburne has the story.

Tongue clicks: this is just one of the techniques used in echolocation. It's a practice which uses sound signals. The main idea behind it is to be able to see through sound.

Brian Bushway - Perceptual Mobility Instructor, World Access for the Blind

"Flash sonar or echolocation is human sonar. It's the ability for humans to listen and interpret sound reflecting off of objects and coming back to the ear. The brain will image whether you send it patterns of sounds or patterns light. The echolocation is a natural human perception; everybody has it whether you're sided or blind."

It's just like what dolphins use to find their food and to figure out where they are or where they are going. Humans have the same ability but through distinct sound signals.

Brian Bushway - Perceptual Mobility Instructor, World Access for the Blind

"The main way we teach and use the echo location is with an active sonar signal; tongue click. That tongue click is great for number of reason. It could be really quite, or it could be really loud. And depending on what you need and the tongue is closest between the ears. The tongue also is also a sound source that the brain will learn to focus in on and pull out information. That tongue click can triangulate in corners, will reflect off of walls and a person can get an acoustic image of their surroundings. When a person is making the tongue click, they should be listening for that half of second of echo. Echo information is really subtle; but it's always there. The world sounds different as much as the world looks different and so we're really trying to teach the brain to focus in on what is that subtle echo information and what does that mean? Like sound reflect off of corners differently. Sound reflects of a tree differently. Sound reflects off basically every object."

And these kids have to train their brains to focus and pick up these distinct sounds. Most of them have to rely on folding canes and external guidance, but now with echolocation – they won't have to.

Donovan Reneau - New to Echolocation

"The first couple hours; great, challenging. I didn't know anything about echolocation. You know I could walk but I never used echolocation in my life as yet. So what I'm learning from this would be a whole new experience of how I could get around here in Belize. I use passive location, like passive means I would probably just sense things in front of me. Now the echolocation would do something, a different bounce. Bounce of signals, you could use it on the streets, you could use it in rain, you could use it almost anywhere. It opens a new world to the blind."

Rowan Gare - I Used echolocation before

"It's like finding out you can see, literally. Because, I mean echolocation helps us to differentiate between objects and in the workshop he said you could use these tongue clicks to orient yourself and detect objects from pretty far away. It's basically like vision.

Juan Reina - "I want to be independent"

" I just want to be an independent person. To not rely on a sighted person to guide me along; cause I always felt like I never needed any help. Like Mr. Brian said, no more human guidance 90% of the time, only you."

Brian Bushway - Perceptual Mobility Instructor, World Access for the Blind

"Learning flash sonar echolocation really brought me more freedom in life. And it's important for everybody to know and learn this skill if you want to have ultimate freedom."

The group will be heading outdoors for practical sessions so the participants can get a better understating of how echolocation really works in the real world.