[nabs-l] Device Helps Blind See with Tongue

[Sophie Trist]

I agree. Canes are wonderful, wonderful things. And so are 
talking GPS systems. Have they ever heard of those? It's a great 
discovery, but what concerns me is their apparent lack of 
education about blind people and the techniques we use.

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Justin Salisbury <PRESIDENT at alumni.ecu.edu
To: "nabs-l at nfbnet.org" <nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Tue, 22 May 2012 22:13:16 +0000
Subject: [nabs-l] Device Helps Blind See with Tongue

Philosophy Discussion Time

I just caught this story on the local news, and I want to hear 
people's opinions of it.  There are many different versions of 
this news story, but here's a link to a page with a video and 
text article:

http://wearecentralpa.com/fulltext-healthcast?nxd_id=369932

Feel free to find other versions of this story using a simple 
search engine.

When I heard that Mark couldn't wait for the day that he could 
navigate his own home independently with a device, I thought to 
myself "hey, I already have one of those devices.  It's called a 
cane!"

In my reading on the story, I get the impression that researchers 
think that this device is important because we blind people are 
oblivious to our surroundings and need some way to get 
information about them.  I think this is cool research for the 
sake of research, but I see absolutely no practical need for the 
device.  With the proper skills and training, we can 
independently navigate our own surroundings.  I further wonder if 
maybe these uneducated or incorrectly educated researchers simply 
don't know about the techniques we blind people can use to 
independently navigate our surroundings or if they view them as 
inferior and think we should be trying to operate as closely to 
sighted people as we can.

What does everyone on the list think?

Justin Salisbury
President
North Carolina Association of Blind Students


Justin M. Salisbury
Class of 2012
B.A. in Mathematics
East Carolina University
president at alumni.ecu.edu

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens 
can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”    
—MARGARET MEAD

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