"Will the blind stand their ground and conduct themselves with an assurance that broadcasts self-reliance or let themselves (whether they wish it or not) be shepherded through life?" - Kathy Jurgens

1. What services do you offer besides FlashSonar instruction?
We can help families, friends, and individuals with the process of adapting to the onset of blindness and vision impairment, and help make that transition smoother. We can help families and students of every type, from any background, and any age, including infants, toddlers, and the elderly put together a plan or achievement program for developing awareness of the senses at any stage of someone's life. Whether someone wants to learn how to more effectively use their cane, how to travel anywhere without need for sighted guidance, how to feel more confident, or how to play a sport, we can help them achieve their goals.
Here is a list of what we offer:
Mobility training - Teaches blind people how to navigate their surroundings with a long cane and how to make full use of all available transportation and resources so that they can function with freedom of choice.
Recreational training - Teaches blind people how to adapt any activity such as mountain biking, soccer, or basketball, so that they can fully participate in all aspects of life.
Community participation- Supports blind people to effectively participate in and enjoy all
activities; from going to work to playing a game of pick-up basketball to riding the bus to the grocery store.
Informational Counseling - Provides support for families to help them understand their child's blindness and how to help their child fully participate in life and reach their full potential.
Professional Development - Provides training for schools and mobility specialists all over the world to incorporate FlashSonar and No Limits into their instruction to enrich the lives and achievement of their students.
Communication Facilitation - Many students are not aware of what is available to them, and many agencies are not forthcoming with information. We help students and families cut through the smoke screens and confusion to access and obtain resources and services from the community, including school, work, or community programs.

2. What is FlashSonar?
FlashSonar (active echolocation) is a blind person's developed perceptual ability to determine where and what things are around them, and how to effectively navigate and interact with these surroundings. This is done by a person making a discrete, quiet tongue click, which allows the ear and brain to work together to construct a 3-D image from the reflected echoes of objects. It is like seeing with sound, as if with dim flashes of light, but using flashes of sound instead. Once developed, this image or spatial understanding is a very powerful addition to a blind person's travel competence and to fostering feelings of confidence about making friends and participating in social activities. FlashSonar training inspired the phrase “Our Vision is Sound,” which is what many of our students use to simply explain their awareness and deep connection with the world.

3. I have heard that not everyone can learn FlashSonar and that some people are just born with the ability. Is that true?
All humans are born with the ability to use FlashsSonar if they can hear. Sighted people can even learn basic levels of FlashSonar perception within minutes of guided exercises. The trick is training the brain to know what to listen for and to know how to process that
information. People around the world of all different ages and backgrounds have learned FlashSonar and use it to be more efficient at self-orientation in new places. The common factor for success among our students is their motivation for a better life experience and their frequent opportunity to practice and apply the skills.

4. How does FlashSonar change the lives of the blind people who use it?
Those who use FlashSonar are more aware and engaged in what is going on around them. They develop a confidence that makes it easier for them to participate in school, work, and social activities, which leads to a life richer with experience and enjoyment. They often exhibit more erect posture and proper head placement, which helps to present a more engaged and self assured demeanor to others.

5. Won't clicking my tongue make me look funny or draw attention?
The method of tongue clicking that we teach and advocate is done discretely, and is no louder than the situation requires. Clicking the tongue doesn't look nearly as funny as not
being aware, looking lost and confused, getting turned around and crashing into things if FlashSonar isn't used well. In our extensive experience, it is the blind people that sometimes seem to be concerned about this. Most sighted people don't seem to pay enough attention to the subtle sounds of the tongue clicking to even notice. A person that travels with a full-length white cane draws much more attention from greater distances than the sound of the tongue click. Asking a person not to use FlashSonar is like asking a sighted person to walk around with their eyes half closed.

6. We already have an O&M instructor. Why would we need additional services?
Our aim is not to replace a student's program if it is already effective. If there is satisfaction with the current amount and quality of instruction being received, then there may be no need for additional services. However, we suggest asking the following questions:
-Is the student being prepared to navigate any environment freely and naturally, with little need to rely on others?
-Can the student participate equitably in all aspects of the community, or is he or she relegated to the side lines?
-Can the student move fluidly and comfortably around without awkwardness?
-Does the student interact with the environment and other people in a manner comparable to his or her peers?
-Are the student's activities overly structured or regimented?

Many students and families are disappointed with the quality of instruction they are receiving. Or, they are simply interested, often with the enthusiastic cooperation of their O&M instructor, in receiving more specialized training in perceptual development.
Traditional O&M instructors usually do not know how to teach FlashSonar. They rarely receive more than part of one lecture or half a textbook chapter on echolocation.

Furthermore, our overall approach to instruction, which we call "Perceptual Mobility", is evidence based, and founded in perceptual theory and neural science. We define Perceptual Mobility as: "Engaging the whole brain in a developmentally natural manner that activates the perceptual imaging system by fostering self-directed freedom of discovery. Rather than trying to push a contrived set of skills onto the student, we stimulate the imaging system to manifest skills as they are needed. It is not a collection of skills that make perception happen; it is perception that compels skills to develop." We go beyond teaching a collection of skills to address various situations. We actually teach the brain to perceive and respond more effectively to any environment in any situation.
Most O&M Specialists are trained to teach their students a collection of skills that the student learns to match to specified situations. While we do teach some of these skills, our emphasis is on developing the perceptual system to construct its own method of addressing any situation as it occurs.


7. What is the No Limits approach?
Our "No Limits" approach is the attitude from which our Perceptual Mobility Instructors and Coaches operate and develop in our students. We create space and opportunity for our clients to discover new abilities and ways of participating in life. It is not up to us as instructors to decide and limit the type of things that our students want to learn how to do better. We help our clients achieve their dreams by fostering within the individual
the capacity and confidence to adapt any situation to make it work for them.

8. Why teach active instead of passive echolocation?
We teach the active click for a number of reasons. First, active echolocation gives control to the user to acquire a vast amount of information in any location at any time. Biosonar scientists refer to active echo calls as "interrogating the environment". Indeed, we often explain to our students that they are using an echo language to converse with the environment. By strategically clicking, we ask the questions, "Where are you" and "What are you", and surfaces throughout the environment answer these questions for those who understand the language of echoes. Secondly, the process of actively clicking give a blind person more control and thus empowers the development of internal attitudes such as confidence, maturity and the ability to socially engage all people. These internal qualities are very important for navigating everything in life, from school to work to romance.

9. What are the advantages of having mobility coaches who are blind themselves?
The advantages of having blind mobility coaches are that they can
often better relate to the clients and share the "street smarts" that it
takes to navigate the public. While not every blind person is cut out to be an instructor, just as every sighted person isn't, blind instructors give the opportunity to infuse the instructional process with the blindness perspective. It is one thing to know "about" blindness, as many sighted people may through their own training and experiences, but it is quite another to "know" blindness by actually being blind and living with blindness every second of every day.

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