Echolocation in blind people reveals the brain’s adaptive powers
Legally blind person here. I&#x27;ve followed these claims for a while and am very interested in them. I was very excited when I first heard about this phenomena but quickly became skeptical when I couldn&#x27;t find any serious research of it. Other than some case reports and a few people on the internet claiming they could do this. Also the near constant resurgence of Daniel Kish every time someone writes about this gives it kind of cult like vibe.<p>Honestly, the reporting has been of a somewhat offensive variety. Particularly an NPR article and podcast a few years back. The reporting was like, &quot;you&#x27;ll never believe what this blind person can do! They ride a bike!&quot;<p>Which of course we can. A completely blind person could absolutely learn to ride a bike, especially in a place they knew was safe and had repeat access to. The article failed utterly to gauge the actual day to day impact this supposed echolocation had. That&#x27;s the true way to judge if a piece of equipment or technique is helpful to a disabled person. What does it do for them at their worst not in their most well known and optimal setting. I don&#x27;t need my monocular at any of the street crossings near my home. I know their timings and patterns like my morning routine.<p>Even worse the article blaimed the failure of this technique to catch on upon orientation and mobility experts who assist blind people in learning to navigate the world.<p>I&#x27;ve worked with quite a few of these folks and the idea of suppressing effective behavior to better fit in is super outmoded. Even in the 90s in the rural state I grew up in that would not have been tolerated. If anything the low blind and low vision folks themselves cares far more about whether they stood out than the mobility experts did.<p>Anyway, the dearth of significant research, the seeming inability to spread it widely through the mobility and orientation community and its near total revolution around the claims of Kish leave it feeling a bit suspicious. I hope it&#x27;s real and can help a lot of people by becoming standard education for blind and low vision but I&#x27;m not holding my breath.