Echolocation Studio

What Skills Make Up Echolocation? 

I try to describe skills in echolocation similar to one would when describing skills within a language. Where echolocation could be called a singular skill in the same context as one would consider a language to be a singular skill. But for both examples, they have a more granular set of a “skill trait family” that is many parts of the whole.

 To continue our comparison, language isn't actually a skill, it's a label to convey information about a family of skills that work in harmony like an orchestra would. There's skills like Grammar, spelling, dialogue, written word with associations and spoken word with social context; the list of that family of skills is of course a lot longer.

 Now if we apply this simile to echolocation, what kind of skills one may find working in unison either part time or full time under the echolocation umbrella? Paraphrasing, most relate to respective sources of information people can learn is contained in an echo. I have named some skills here, Direction, Distance, Size, Shape, Materials and so on. Each of these skills are either working alongside some or all these skills collectively and complementary, then various parts of the brain, like the the visual cortex and parietal lobe working together to create an internal 3d visual map of our minds eye and delivering all that information straight to our prefrontal cortex for us to choose a passive or active response.

If Echolocation Is A Collection Of Skills, What Skills Should I Start With? Where Do I Go From There?

You begin learning skills around your hearing experience before kindergarten age and continue to do it through your entire life unless you lose your hearing. So wouldn't a great “step one” on the path of reaching your own goals with learning echolocation. Is to take a step back further and learn about step zero that you are already using? You'll have greater insight on where the path begins and it can show the way from there just as you were approaching another skill and learning ever more complex sub-skills and that's where we will start here.

 If you follow the link to the page Project Structure, you can see the layout of how the project plans to break the skill down into manageable single lesson chunks. You can use these breakdowns to plan what the learner desires with each individual goal (for example, you may want to be very good at learning Distance skill, but worry less about learning about Size skill in great detail, you may also return after a few years and learn more about materials)

 The power is in the hands of the learner and it's the teacher's responsibility to guide you to reach your goals, regardless of the reasons for its purpose. For example, some here may learn because of curiosity, some for tools to help with autism; meanwhile almost everyone who has already learnt through other means use it as a mobility tool for the blind and vision impaired. Goals for every skill help you create a kind of individual “fingerprint” you can use to objectively describe how good you are compared to interrelated skills and be able to describe your personal style preference of using echolocation with linguistic accuracy and repetition.

Who Can Learn Something From Echolocation?

Echolocation is a skill. One made of sub skills that can be used and applied in many different and new situations you face through your life. Echolocation has been a tool used by countless blind and vision impaired people to give them a palette of auditory information about their environment that sighted people typically use their eyesight to gain information (in some ways it is superior with its ability of 360 degree hearing and ability to learn to listen around corners, things eyesight cannot do).

 I am also hoping to present this curriculum to be used as a therapeutic tool for autistic people to use to help them manage and regulate their sound sensitivities. These people are more than capable of learning echolocation without issue if adapted for their neurodivergence.

 Echolocation teaching provides the learner with new information about their environment in a format you may not have intuitively taught yourself beforehand, there are many out there who have already learnt who have no kind of disability or diagnosis. But they do learn out of curiosity’s sake, having an interesting party trick skill, to learn new tools and vocabulary to better describe their own experiences around sounds and echoes to themselves and to others, etc etc. There are countless reasons for someone wanting to learn and gain something out of the experience, and this is why so many kinds of diverse people with their own reasons out there are more than capable of learning.

What Can I Expect To Be Able To Do Once I Learn/Teach Echolocation?

 For those who learn echolocation and are blind or vision impaired, it gives them an order of magnitude better ability to be aware of surroundings without tactile feedback. This is a great way to describe results people see once they learn at least some form of echolocation; greater obstacle detection and recognition. For those who learn who do have sight, echolocation can be a tool with many uses. People with sight still find themselves in situations that are either too bright like alpine snow-blindness environments, or environments too dark like homes during a power outage and if you only look at these two examples, they are situations many, if not all sighted people can find themselves in at some point in their lives.

 Echolocation information is supplementary and complementary to other forms of sensory feedback even when those sensations are in conflict. For example, I have known people who learn echolocation because they have visual hallucinations and they focus on echolocation information to be a “double-check” to confirm to themselves what's real in their environment and what's not. These are only some of the countless examples of not only environments but situations one can find themselves in that echolocation can do helpful things.

Do I need to be taught by/teach others? Can I self-direct and learn/teach myself?

 You don't not need a teacher to learn echolocation, while a teacher does provide extra value by assisting, guiding and sharing resources, but this isn't a barrier to learning the skill. There is a long history that goes back at least to the 1940’s of at least people teaching themselves and sharing what they've learnt with others and some of those over the years have become teachers  of disability specialists who teach others too. Many people draw the connections and associations independently by themselves while still socially collectively being called echolocation by most who use the skill.

 I myself taught myself echolocation long before I knew the word existed, and longer before I knew others used the same name too and if I can, there's no reason why someone else can't teach themselves. You don't need a strict training program to follow, you don't need a list of lessons to follow before you try something different, an intuition-based skill progression is a very common way to teach yourself. It is hard to explain how to teach others how to teach themselves and is a bit of an oxymoron situation, but I hope this has communicated my insights.

If Many People Are Self-Taught In Echolocation, What Value Is There In Directly Teaching A Student Instead?

This intensive nature of direct-learning, in opposition to a passive, self-learnt approach; Is greatly facilitated by teaching approaches focusing on the reduction of the imposition of physical and verbal guiding, description and narration, sighted facilitation and environmental modification during the learning process, in and out of class. Giving the student the best chance of succeeding and learning something new, faster than one would if self-taught.

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If you wish to learn more or have more questions please explore our Project Structure to learn more about how the project will be laid out for teachers and students of echolocation. There are more questions answered in the More Information section. If you have other questions about this project or want to get involved, please don't hesitate to contact me.