Food for Thought: Sight with Echolocation
As current optometry students, we are learning techniques and methods on how to improve and prevent patients from losing their vision, but what happens to someone who undergoes blindness at an early age due to an eye disease or loses their vision later on in life? There is help out there in the form of low vision therapy and aids such as white canes and guide dogs to help such people. However, I recently came across an article on NPR, News Public Radio, that spoke about echolocation as one of these aids. Echolocation is a technique used by bats and dolphins which people who are blind can also use to see the world around them with just the clicking of their tongue. It was fascinating to know that even when all vision is lost, blind people do not have to face a limiting lifestyle. An example is Daniel Kish, who was blind as a child and is now able to mountain bike, cook, swim, and travel around the world! Kish founded an organization called World Access for the Blind, to help train others like him on how to interact with the environment and to show that anything is possible. For more information, the link to the article on echolocation is below:
