task force grant

History:

IIBN was founded in 1996 to monitor the development of high technologies impacting blind navigation. It started as a local organization funding the purchase of sophisticated technologies for the blind and visually impaired children of Saginaw County, Michigan; it still has this primary function. Eventually, IIBN became nationally and internationally recognized. In 2005, along with World Access for the Blind and the National Federation of the Blind, IIBN sponsored the first world congress on advanced wayfinding technologies for the blind.

Mission and Goals:

The mission of the Institute for Innovative Blind Navigation (IIBN) is “to become a global center for the study, promotion, and development of sophisticated wayfinding technologies that have the potential for improving the efficiency and safety of travel for blind individuals”. IIBN is a wayfinding think tank organized to gather consumer, public, and professional opinion, formulate proposed policies, and develop and distribute relevant information. IIBN strives to bring harmony and cooperation to the blind rehabilitation community. The business of the Institute is summarized in the four goals below.

To gather, organize, and share knowledge about wayfinding technologies for individuals who are visually impaired

To design and administer training programs

To identify key wayfinding technologies: to communicate and consult with inventors; and to report on emerging and existing technologies.

To provide technologies, services, and jobs for blind children.

Current Programs, Activities, Accomplishments:

The current focus of IIBN is to create a regional assistive technology program at Saginaw Valley State University. IIBN's goal to establish an international research and development program to address blind navigation can best be accomplished through a partnership with occupational therapists, and in cooperation with assistive technology experts within a university setting.

This grant proposal came from talks with university representatives, and it serves the dual purpose of launching the effort to change the structure of blind education, and as a first step toward the assistive technology program at SVSU.

IIBN is also working with the Special Needs Vision Clinic at the Millet Center to restructure how we examine and treat children with special needs. We provide funds for blind children and visually impaired kids (in Saginaw County) for technologies and training. These funds primarily come from grants received from the Mc Nally Foundation. We also manage three international list serves for professionals and consumers. List membership is approaching 1,000 experts.

In 2002, we put on four regional workshops with the title “Advances in Wayfinding Technology.” These were held in Florida, the State of Washington, Michigan, and California. We also presented at the American Printing House for the Blind in Kentucky. In 2005, we co-sponsored the first World Congress on Blind Wayfinding Technologies; top experts across the globe assembled to discuss the state of the art of emerging technologies.

Organizational Chart:

IIBN is directed by Doug Baldwin, the staff orientation and mobility specialist for the Saginaw Intermediate School District. Dr. Baldwin set up IIBN to serve the students he works with in the public and private schools of Saginaw County.

IIBN works with no funding for staff or for office expenses. Dr. Baldwin receives no compensation. There is no budget for office rent, utilities, travel, etc. Dr. Baldwin absorbs many costs himself, and the school district for Saginaw provides in-kind support. A ten percent administrative request is often added to grants to help cover IIBN expenses, and to purchase small items for children in special education in Saginaw County.

There is no staff at IIBN other than Dr. Baldwin. The board of directors is composed of regional and national experts in the field of blind education and technology.

Statement of Needs

There are no organizations in the world teaching perceptual skills to blind children with the aim of developing fluent navigational abilities. There are individual teachers, a scattering of researchers, and a few perceptual experts who advocate this approach, but there is no organized, institutional effort to bring it about. Our need is to gather together these unique teachers, researchers, and advocates and set them the task of changing the course of history; they will lay down the road that will lead to a revolution in teaching blind children.

Target Population

All blind students studying in the public schools will benefit from this change in perspective. Timing is especially critical from birth to the age of three; blind children lack essential perceptual abilities that would normally develop through the use of vision during their first three years of life. These lost opportunities impact blind individuals for their entire lives. We now have the tools and knowledge to address this perceptual void in development, but we do not yet have the institutional structure in place to deliver the services and provide the technologies.

Research done twenty years ago showed that complex sound patterns (generated by sonar) allowed blind children to perceive with sound. The children got distance, size, and shape information from sonar patterns. Despite this evidence, the education of blind children did not substantially change. We believe this was because there was no institution available to develop, adapt, and train in the use of these (at the time) very expensive and bulky technologies. There still is no profession and no institutional effort to use available tools to teach blind children to perceive.

Benefit:

Four analogies help clarify the need and the benefits:

Comparison with Braille:

Blind children who are taught Braille follow a step by step training process that begins in preschool and continues through high school. As a result of this developmentally guided curriculum, blind children become exceptionally proficient using Braille. They read as fast as visual readers and comprehend just as well as the sighted. Braille (haptic processing) can be understood as an alternative system to visual processing; both vision and touch accomplish the task of gathering print based knowledge. The function we call "reading" can be accomplished using either tactile or visual patterns.

By analogy, our belief is that blind children who are given alternative (non-visual- usually sound) patterns from birth to high school using a developmentally guided curriculum and appropriate assistive technology will "see" the environment and will therefore travel about normally. They may also perceive details in the environment that are presently unavailable to blind individuals.

Consumer and professional experience:

Dan Kish is one of the best examples of a blind individual who uses self-generated (and at times technologically generated) sound patterns to navigate. Using simple tongue clicks he can "see" objects and perceive openings. He can also perceive scenes (landscapes). Dan was self taught, but now he is an international expert on echolocation (navigating using sound patterns). Many blind children learn instinctively to hear and avoid walls and to perceive openings. Our belief, with Dan as a prime example, is that native intelligence can be trained through a developmental curriculum, and can be enhanced by technology.

Bats; evidence from the animal kingdom:

Bats are essentially blind, yet they fly at high speeds and with amazing accuracy, picking tiny insects out of the air. Bats see with sound. They use self-generated sonar that bounces off objects and comes back to the bat perceptual system as reflected (relevant and usable) information.

Bats have very tiny brains compared to humans. We believe that the human brain can learn to navigate as accurately as the bat brain if blind human infants and toddlers are given appropriate technology and training.

Wiggles is a blind dog that uses a technology developed by World Access for the Blind called the SoundFlash. On a visit to Ohio where Wiggles lives, Dan Kish evaluated the use of his technology with an unexpected animal model (Dan had no idea that dog lovers would use his technology). The following was taken from Dan's notes during the visit (2007):

“We went outside (Wiggles was wearing the SoundFlash), and ... he started responding the same way many of our students do as they warm up to the new stimuli. He began scanning with his head, twisting his ears, and moving about… Wiggles would walk up to an object, appear to regard it for awhile, then move around it and seek out another object, His posture was poised, and his head was held high.”

If bats, dogs with assistive technologies, and (as we know) dolphins can use sonar to navigate then so can human beings. Much of this is not surprising to experts nor is the knowledge about “blind” animals” anything new. What is new is a set of technologies that can send and interpret sonar. There is also a renewed enthusiasm for teaching blind infants and young children (especially) to use their innate perceptual abilities in novel ways.

Technological push:

Using existing technologies like Dan Kish's SoundFlash, we can demonstrate improved perception beyond the native abilities of blind children. In one example, with only one hour of training at IIBN, blind students were able to use "hand and eye" coordination to pick up items (cups, coke cans, etc.) off a table using ultrasonic sound patterns.

One way to think about this is to consider normal spectacle glasses. Without glasses, sighted people can still see to get around and can still identify objects, even though resolution is poor. However, when spectacle lenses are placed before the eyes, object perception improves. The same holds true for blind children; the sound pattern technologies sharpen and enhance their ability to see with sound even when they are quite good at echolocation.

We are in an age of development in which technological breakthroughs are arriving at exponential speed. This means that technologies will arrive at a pace which will make prosthetic vision a reality for blind individuals in the not so distant future. One of our long range goals is to enable the development of sophisticated prosthetics that make seeing with sound a reality (and that add features beyond perception: GPS, face recognition, computer implant and molecular genetic interfacing, etc.). Dan Kish and Doug Baldwin worked on a prototype design called Hawkeye several years ago. We hope the task force will set in motion a plan to move Hawkeye (or something like it) off the page and into the market place.

Goals and Objectives:

We will hold a two day intensive meeting at Saginaw Valley State University. We anticipate that the task force will address the following parallel objectives:

ONE: The task force will discuss the creation of a perceptually-based
developmental curriculum for teaching perceptual skills to blind
children. They will provide an initial outline for this curriculum and will
set in motion the activities that will bring the curriculum about.

TWO: The task force will discuss the creation of a perceptually-based set of strategies for teaching perceptual skills to blind children. They will provide the initial outline/guideline for these strategies and will set in motion the activities that will bring the strategies to consumers.

THREE: The task force will define "brain-based education" and will create guidelines for achieving this objective with blind children through a developmental curriculum and using perceptual strategies.

FOUR: The task force will discuss the creation and/or adaptation of wayfinding technologies. These technologies will be applied depending on individual developmental level and brain based findings. The final product may be a visual prosthesis.

FIVE: The task force will set in motion stage two of the project; including recommendations for further task force groups (with clearly articulated objectives).

SIX: The task force will highlight (record) research that must be done to bring about the above goals.

Timetable:
The task force will meet in the fall of 2007. The event will be two days in duration. We anticipate that the task force will establish timelines and milestones for the creation of the six objectives listed above.
After the task force meets, and within two months, we will write a summary paper and publish it on the internet.
Within two months, the O&M list serve (and other blindness list serves) will be notified of the summary paper, and will be asked to provide recommendations.

Co-sponsors participating in the project:

World Access for the Blind (WAFTB): The following information was taken from the World Access website:

“World Access for the Blind is a non-profit organization employing unique teaching strategies to help blind and sighted people throughout the world improve their quality of life, and dedicated to the conviction that blind people can learn to see without sight, and sighted people can learn to see better.”
"We can see with our ears." This telling proclamation by a 13-year-old student of World Access for the Blind (WAFTB) in a TV interview reflects our core conviction - that blind people can learn to see without sight. Daniel Kish, Co-founder and Director of WAFTB, lost his sight as an infant; yet he grew as a normal child free to enjoy the world and learn by doing. Dan accomplished this by teaching himself when very young to "see" with sonar by clicking his tongue, which enables identification of spatial relationships using acoustics (hearing) - similar to how a bat uses echolocation.”

“WAFTB garners international recognition through over a dozen invited presentations and training camps delivered yearly to thousands of participants throughout the world. We have been featured in publications, such as "Popular Science," "Business Week," and a textbook called "Early Focus." We have also received international exposure from over a dozen TV and radio programs including More Than Human (Discovery Channel), NBC Nightly News, Ripley's "Believe It or Not, and several top European news programs.”

Blind Vision; Inc:

The Department of Occupational Therapy at Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU):

Key Staff:

Dr. Douglas Baldwin, the director of IIBN is the contact person for the grant and the lead organizer of the task force. He is also responsible for following through with task force recommendations. Dr. Baldwin has a post doctoral Masters Degree in Blind Rehabilitation, a Doctorate in Optometry, and he is in his 29th year as an orientation and mobility specialist (blindness consultant) for the Saginaw Intermediate School System. Dr. Baldwin also serves as a board advisor to World Access for the Blind.

Dan Kish is a member of the IIBN board of directors as well as the founder of World Access for the Blind. He is the inventor of Soundflash- a technology for seeing with sound. Dan Kish and Doug Baldwin, through their respective organizations have co-sponsored initiatives in the past, including the 2005 World Congress on Advanced Wayfinding Technologies. Dan holds Masters' Degrees in Psychology and Special Education where he emphasized the study of children at risk, perceptual development, and information processing. Dan has since conducted ground-breaking research in expanding human perception.

Add Janet and Brunhilde

Board of Directors of IIBN:

The board chairman of IIBN is Mike Hudson, the director of Michigan State University's Office of Disability Services. Mike is blind and is a former student of Dr. Baldwin's. Other Board members are:

Brunhilde Merk-Adams, director of Blind Vision, Inc.; housed in Clarkston, Michigan. Brunhilde is the mother of a blind child and she is a national leader and advocate for blind children.

Dan Kish is CEO of World Access for the Blind. Dan has a masters degree in orientation and mobility (blind navigation), and another in human perception. He is a world expert on echolocation and wayfinding technologies. He is also blind.

Lou Alonzo is a Professor Emeritus; Michigan State University. Lou is an internationally recognized expert in blind children and their education.

Susan Langendonk is an Orientation & Mobility Specialist in the Lansing School District. She has thirty years of experience working with blind children. She is past president of our state association.

Ed Piotrowski is the Orientation and Mobility Specialist for the Bay Arenac ISD Public Schools; he has 20 years of experience working with blind children. Ed was coordinator for the national workshops on advanced wayfinding technologies.

Michael Kazmierski is the father of twin blind children. He and his wife are very active on state and national issues relevant to blind students.

Colleen LaRose is the Orientation and Mobility Specialist for the Eaton County Schools. She has over thirty years of experience working with blind children. She also lectures on wayfinding technology at Western Michigan University

Fred Wurtzel is the President of the National Federation of the Blind of Michigan. Fred is blind himself and has been an articulate and passionate leader of Michigan consumers for decades.

Long Range Strategies for Funding the Project at the End of this Grant Period:

We anticipate that (at least) the following will evolve from the task force:

1. A plan to develop and market various technologies of various complexities, from simple obstacle detectors to a visual prosthesis.
2. A plan to create an expert system on the internet with data base and search capabilities, and/or an interactive internet based developmental curriculum (on wikicurr or wikipedia) for teaching blind navigation to children.

We will obviously need to write a series of grants to support these efforts. A federal grant may be needed, and/or a set of matching grants from regional foundations.

Working with the university opens several options. Dr. Janet Nagayda and Doug Baldwin are planning an assistive technology department at SVSU under the direction of the occupational therapy department. An assistive technology research and develop lab is included in the overall concept. As a component of the assistive technology lab, IIBN would establish an international research and development program to address advancing wayfinding technologies. We anticipate that university funds will be available at different times during the development of these new institutions.