Many technologies exist to assist people who are blind or have limited vision to manage daily life. But even without technology, people — regardless of whether they could see or not — can learn the ability to echolocate like bats and whales to see the world around them using sound. Scientists in the U.
K. conducted an experiment in which a group of sighted and blind people were given a 10-week course on how to echolocate. Their results, published earlier this year in the journal Cerebral Cortex , suggest that our brains have an extraordinary capacity to adapt, regardless of visual ability.
In the early 1980s, when I was a roving reporter for CBC Radio's Morningside with Peter Gzowski, I visited the Canadian National Institute for the Blind in Toronto. There, I interviewed Geoff Eden who was responsible for new emerging technologies to assist people who are blind. Eden, who is blind himself, introduced me to a variety of devices including a beeping soccer ball, early voice synthesizers for computer screens and braille keyboards and printers.
Then he said, "There is another device I would like to show you but it is in another building. Follow me." He proceeded out the door and down the hallway at a brisk pace — and he did not use a white cane, used by many people who are blind to scan their surroundings for obstacles.
(The colour white helps onlookers identify them as blind.) I followed him to the end of the hall, around a corner, out a door to a parking lot, between sever.