[Missouri-l] Exploring Blindness: Questions yet Unanswered

[Nancy Lynn]

I got this from another list. There are many good points here worth 
considering.

This article should be one which will start a lot of great discussions on
our list.
Exploring Blindness:
Questions yet Unanswered

Michael Bullis
BRAILLE MONITOR, Vol. 53, No. 3   March 2010

Michael Bullis is a certified orientation and mobility instructor and
currently the executive director of the Maryland Technology Assistance
Program. In the following article he raises questions and explores research
options, discussion of which we usually find uncomfortable. He welcomes
comments on these ideas at
> <bullis.michael at gmail.com>.

   As members of a minority striving for acceptance, we spend much of
 our time emphasizing our normality and our capacity to compete. When
people say, "You must have wonderful hearing," we usually reply that blind
people
 don't hear particularly well. When they say, "You must have a phenomenal
memory to recall where you're going," we respond, "Not really. My cane gives
me the information I need, but I probably don't have much more capacity for
memory than you do." And so it goes.

Because we live in a sighted society, we strive to seem to be part of it.
Yes, we're blind, but
 we strive to minimize the differences and emphasize the things we have in
 common with the sighted society around us.

   All of this is quite understandable. We compete for jobs, the romantic
attentions of others, the interest of potential friends, etc. People fear or
at least shy away from that which they perceive as weird.

But, though we are much like our sighted family members, friends,
and colleagues, we are also different. We cannot see.

This means we take in most of the information we gather about our
surroundings through touch and
 sound. Sighted folks more often than not take in information visually.
Yes, there are taste and smell, but these are not primary sources of
information unless we're at a restaurant,

   Although we are surely more alike than different from our sighted
colleagues, our differences are certainly worth understanding. I keep a list
of topics I wish we understood better. Some items are obvious and require
little explanation. Others require some discussion. Some will lead
 to inventions, while others will lead to research and new training
techniques. Here then is my list of blindness issues that we should explore.
   1. Although hearing tests show that blind people do not hear better than
others, do we hear differently? Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has shown
that the blind process audible information using the visual cortex. Can this
processing capacity be enhanced? Could we take in more audio information
through the development of new and heretofore unconsidered
 techniques?

Daniel Kish of World Access for the Blind teaches active echolocation, which
he calls "flash sonar." Watching his students, it is clear that they can
define the characteristics of a room, playground, or mountain trail far
better than those of us who simply rely on the echoes
 produced by our canes.

   Discussion of whether tongue clicking is weird puts the cart before the
horse. First we should research a method to determine its benefits. Then
blind people can decide whether the gains outweigh the social idiosyncrasy.

That's what we do with the cane. We decide that the benefits of the cane
outweigh the disadvantages of being different from others. So,
 even though many of us pooh pooh the tongue-clicking method as weird,
shouldn't we try to understand and assess the information it conveys and try
to incorporate it into our lives and those of our students?

Perhaps the richer tapestry of detail that flash sonar allows would help
newly blinded
 folks frustrated by the limited picture the cane provides. Canes are
 effective at creating a picture of the immediate area where we are
traveling, but they are not so good at helping us formulate images at thirty
or forty feet.

Although the echoes from a crisp metal cane tip can fill in some blanks in
the environment, they cannot create nearly the detail that active
echo-location does.

   As I said, I do acknowledge that we're uncomfortable with the idea of
 blind people being defined as "clickers." But, let's be honest. We already
stand out in a crowd by virtue of using a cane--something we've been working
for seventy years to get the public to understand.

When I was a young man, I observed some blind clickers. I thought they were
weird, and,
 quite honestly, they were usually blind people who exhibited other less
 than socially normal behavior. My mom wouldn't have tolerated my clicking.
She explained, more often than I care to remember, "You live in a sighted
world." This meant that I should try to blend in--not be different. That's
why, in some ways, using a cane was so difficult for me. Doing so meant a
readjustment of thinking that I thought had served me pretty well up to
 that point.

   So I'm not advocating clicking during a job interview. I'm simply
suggesting that after investigation we might decide it is one of the many
tools we could use in the right situation and at an appropriate time. What
we have not yet done is give it a very serious look rather than a cursory
glance.

Could flash sonar be an answer to detecting quiet cars?

   2. Can some hear far better because they use techniques that could and
perhaps should be taught to others? I've met people who could hear animals
in the woods that I simply couldn't hear. Are they better at discriminating
than I am? Could I learn the skill?

   3. Can we improve our hearing? It seems to me that there are two
ways to improve hearing. Either we improve our ability to interpret what is
 already coming into our ears, a technique that we teach to some extent in
cane travel instruction. Then there is the improvement of our ability to
hear what's out there through mental training or mechanical means. Hearing
aids improve people's hearing but often interfere with directionalization
and discrimination. Can we create devices that actually improve our
 hearing?

Is the shape of the human ear optimal? Could it be improved? Are the liquid
in the ear canals and the hairs that register sound as sefficient as they
might be? Could we improve their function?

   4. Can we improve our ability to directionalize sound? Could the
 shape of the ear or some external device improve our ability to focus on
distant objects, thus providing a more accurate sound picture of them?

   5. Can we find ways to dampen loud sounds that overwhelm softer ones in
order to increase our information-gathering ability at, say, very noisy
intersections or when a neighbor is mowing the lawn?

6. Improving touch. It is said that Jacob Bolotin could feel Braille through
eighteen handkerchiefs. I don't know if that was true or not, but I have
certainly met both blind and sighted people with very sensitive touch. Can
touch be improved in us all? Could we develop techniques?

Similarly, can nerves damaged by age, diabetes, or overuse be reinvigorated?
What do
 people with incredibly sensitive touch have that the rest of us don't, and
 how can we spread it around?

   7. The ability to map a physical environment mentally is stronger in
 some folks than in others. Certain parts of the brain are activated in good
mental mappers and not in those who aren't. Could we enhance the skill
through focused training? We already improve it somewhat through travel
training, but could we develop more focused abilities?

   8. Using residual vision. One primary approach to using residual
 vision is to occlude it during training and then assume that it will be
useful once the person has sharpened alternative techniques. But I have
noticed that some people, with or without  raining, use their residual
 vision more effectively than others. Yes, yes, I know that the profession
clings to residual vision like an alcoholic to the bottle, but can we put
all that aside and determine whether we can develop better techniques to
help people benefit more effectively from their residual vision?

The immersion method taught by NFB helps retrain the brain to process
nonvisual information. It works better with some folks than with others.
That is,
 some people seem naturally able to redirect their brains to use alternative
techniques. Others, although they study for up to a year in an NFB center,
don't seem to make the switch easily. Why? What can we learn from these
folks about how to teach them?

   9. Braille literacy. Let's set aside the issue of whether Braille is
 taught effectively or often enough to children and adults. Braille is
difficult for many adults to learn. Sighted learners who did not learn to
read or write as children have similar difficulties with print. What can we
 do to fix this?

Far too often we continue Braille instruction when, whether through lack of
finger sensitivity or for other reasons, it is obvious that the student is
not going to be an effective Braille reader.
   Beyond the literacy problems this creates, these folks are unable to take
notes efficiently. How about developing a truly effective audio management
system for people-a portable device that quickly allows the digital
recording and indexing of information and the retrieval of that
 information? Suppose you could record something like "phone number for Bob
 Jones, 361-2273." Then, when you wanted the number, you simply say, "Bob
 Jones" and are immediately presented with information under that name. No
such product is currently on the market.

One can record information on a multitude of devices, but there is no
elegant and simple way to find it quickly and easily. Suppose we could
combine voice-recognition technology with a voice recorder and make the
information truly indexable? The technology for such a device exists.

   10. Blindness counseling. Historically, blind people have been counseled
to death. Psychologists and psychiatrists were the first stop in
rehabilitation through the 1970s. Over the past thirty or forty years we
have for the most part discontinued that practice. But perhaps we've thrown
out the baby with the bath water.

   Some people really do have difficulty adjusting to blindness. With the
right professional counseling they could benefit from therapy. This doesn't
mean that they're broken or that blindness necessarily requires the
intervention of psychiatrists because of its complexity or trauma. It does
mean that professional counseling techniques have something to offer
professionals in the blindness field.

   Those who conduct group discussions at centers for the blind could truly
benefit from some training in ways to engage in group counseling. No, the
groups would not turn into group therapy  sessions. They would simply be
managed by a professional who understood at a deeper level how to spot and
understand group interactions and the messages being sent and received.

 Psychiatrists, psychologists, and other therapists really do have a vast
and useful body of knowledge that could be helpful. We need to find ways to
incorporate that knowledge into professional work with the blind while not
sending negative messages.

Yes, most counselors focus far too often on blindness when the cause is
something else. I well remember the fellow who said when told that he was
angry about his blindness, "What you don't
 understand, sir, is that I was a jerk before I became blind." We ignore at
our peril the broader knowledge about human personality and the personal
counseling skills being developed today. In the long run, not knowing leads
to less effective rehabilitation for the more challenging people we face.

11. Cane improvements. We're still in need of improvements in the long white
cane. It doesn't protect against upper body objects. That's a big deal for
many who don't enjoy knocks on the head or wet branches in the face.

We also need to increase the capacity of the cane to detect objects at a
distance. Numerous methods have been tried, but nothing yet meets the test
of affordability and ease of use.

   12. Audible balls. We need a method of making balls of all types audible
so blind kids and adults can learn the joys of ball playing. The goal is a
ball that is audible and has the same bounce and weight as regular balls.

   13. A paradigm shift. Perhaps the lack of sight itself needs a bit of
discussion. Humans cannot fly independently. Birds can. Because of this
disability, humans have invented aircraft and rocketships. Whether we would
have done so if we had had wings and the capacity to fly, I don't know. But
I think the argument can be made that blind people may be uniquely
positioned to invent a new form of sight--and perhaps, one that goes beyond
that used by naturally sighted people. What would such sight be?

   14. Things left out. I do not include in this list anything having to do
with creation of synthetic eyes, restoration of the optic nerves, or sight
restoration. That subject is being adequately addressed by the medical field
and will be a constant focus of those who seek to prevent blindness.

Conclusions

Blindness excites me. It is a fascinating and rich experience. I like
fascinating and rich experiences. If somebody offered me the opportunity to
see tomorrow, with several caveats, I would take it. I would take it
precisely because it too would be exciting and rich. In the meantime,
though, let's explore and engage this experience and learn from it, perhaps
enriching the world for the sighted and blind alike.