Thursday, June 4, 2015

Echolocating

After reading chapter one about the amazing ability of echolocation, I found a video that was taken several years ago of Ben Underwood. Ben had his eyes removed at the age of three due to cancer. Ben’s family was a lot like Daniel Kish’s parents and encouraged his independence. The book has stated that when we do not have the ability to use one sense that our other senses become stronger. People who are blind usually will have a stronger sense of hearing, but for Ben Underwood his hearing was found to be in the normal range. There are five parts to the YouTube videos, but below I displayed part 2, only to show some of his skills of echolocating and the results of a hearing test that was done. Since Ben's hearing was in the normal range it is astonishing of how well he was able to echolocate. The link under the YouTube video is a web page dedicated to Ben Underwood, who unfortunately died in 2009 from cancer.    


Ben Underwood's Website

3 comments:

  1. Hi Cynthia. I enjoyed your post and I found the video to be very fascinating! Chapter one in the book has been my favorite so far. Watching this video made me feel happy to know that people who do lose their vision are still able to get around in everyday life. Echolocation is so interesting!

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  2. I agree Brittany, it's crazy that someone who is blind can still get around as well as someone with perfect vision, with echolocation.

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  3. I had no idea what echolocation was. I've heard blind people click as they move around, but never really put the two together to understand that it helps them navigate. This chapter was really interesting and I think it was a great start for the book because it grabbed my attention quickly. I like that you posted a video, it gives a better idea of what the text is discussing.

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