This Blind Man use tongue-clicks to navigate the world!
- There is a blind man in America, Daniel Kish, who uses echolocation to navigate in the same way as a bat! He does this by producing a clicking sound with his tongue and then listening intently for the sound waves to bounce back.
- Daniel Kish who has been blind since he was 13 months old.
- When Daniel Kish clicks his tongue, the world answers back.
- Cars, trees, doorways, bollards on the pavement… all are identified and mapped in his brain using information gleaned from a series of sharp little taps of his tongue against the roof of his mouth, two or three times a second.
- From an early age, the Californian developed a sonar technique which allowed him to navigate using echoes from repeated tongue-clicks.
- The echoes from his clicks inform Kish about an object's distance, size, texture and density. It's enough for him to differentiate between, say, a metal fence and a wooden fence.
- He is an American expert in human echolocation and President of World Access for the Blind, a non-profit founded in 2000 to facilitate "the self-directed achievement of people with all forms of blindness" and increase public awareness about their strengths and capabilities.
- Kish and his organization have taught echolocation to at least 500 blind children around the world.
- He also holds masters degrees in developmental psychology and special education.