Getting past barriers

Daniel Kish, 43, lost his eyesight when he was a baby due to cancer of the retina. At about the age of 2, on a restless night, he climbed out the window of his Hacienda Heights home to explore. He told me it’s his first memory in life.

From house to house, he “caroused the neighborhood,” he laughed, finding his way through fences, discovering his environment one place at a time. He was driven to explore by a sense that there was something “on the other side of the fence.”

Eventually, a neighborhood woman found him and returned him safely home. Little did the young boy know that the instinct he used to safely navigate his way from yard to yard would eventually be something he’d harness into what has become a sparkling teaching tool for other blind children. It’s called “echolocation,” and it’s the natural technique used in creating sound to bounce off physical objects as a means of helping to establish the physical environment around you. Bats are probably most well known for using this form of sonar, but dolphins and whales also incorporate it.

“It’s seeing with sound,” as Kish defines it, and it involves making “clicking” sounds by using the tongue against the roof of one’s mouth. The echolocative clicking is simply something that Kish did subconsciously as a youngster; something that he says was natural for his brain to do. He says he thinks that it’s inherent in everyone, this ability to echolocate, and when it doesn’t present itself, it’s because something outside of us has acted to block the development or application of what should be innate.

Today, Kish is the lead founder and chief executive of World Access for the Blind. The mission statement: “This Huntington Beach-based nonprofit organization uniquely combines a self-directed, no-limits approach with expertise in perceptual development, positive psychology, person-centered instruction and public education to develop and mobilize innovative, high-impact, achievement-oriented strategies to challenge all forms of blindness throughout the world.”

Kish’s path to this position today is an interesting one. When he was going through graduate school in the early 1990s (already with a master’s degree in psychology), he never thought about the blindness field as an area of study — he was more interested in child welfare policy reform. But in studying abused children at risk, a big-picture question intrigued him: Why do some kids grow up well adjusted versus maladjusted? And how about when you apply that question to blind children? He felt that environmental factors were huge, so he began developing a course using echolocation for humans, something very rare at the time. In developing the course, he told me, he began dissecting himself, becoming introspective to get to the heart of how he developed and what factors may have contributed to his seemingly spectacular ability to use echolocation in his everyday life.

Thus ended his dreams of becoming a big shot in policy reform. But what emerged was a man who decided that helping blind children lead “normal” lives would become a big part of his calling. “These are kids who have some of the biggest challenges of all in today’s world,” he said. “And when I see kids that are having an extra hard time getting by or are unable to use echolocation, I can usually find a hang-up that’s blocking the process, maybe something in school, the home, the surroundings — it varies.”

I watched a video recently of some blind youngsters riding bikes. You’d never know they were blind — it was simply the echolocation at work, as taught by Kish. He acknowledges that it’s rare to be able to harness the skill as he does, and he credits his growing up “without barriers” with giving him the power.

“My parents encouraged and supported my ability to discover,” he said. “I was among the first generation of blind kids in the country who were allowed to go to a regular school. I got a bike when I was 6.

“I was treated normal, raised with lots of common sense guidelines, and so this ability to get in touch with this innate ability was greatly supported. Today, there are more professionals, which means more opinions and belief systems about the blind. I think this might hinder some development. I mean, common sense is not really that common anymore.”

Listening to Kish speak, you realize he is a visionary. Moving into the 21st century, he felt the world needed more modern ideas to help deal with blindness, and so he formed World Access for the Blind. But it goes beyond just echolocation.

“I like to teach the concept of seeing ourselves as leaders in the self development of human potential,” he said. “There are lessons we can all learn from blind people, and let’s face it, each one of us is blind in one way or another.”

Now, you may have seen Kish on TV or read about him as he travels the world on behalf of his organization. Not just families contact him with blind children, but adults, companies, even countries that need help when it comes to the blind.

He takes each challenge separately, he says, becoming fully immersed as much as he can to help train, counsel and coach.

Last year, Kish and his coaching staff were featured on national U.K. television and throughout western Europe in an hour-long documentary titled “Extraordinary People.”

It’s perfectly appropriate, because this is an extraordinary man doing extraordinary things — and if we all saw the world as he did, that might not be a bad thing.

Kish can be contacted at daniel.kish@worldaccess fortheblind.org or (866) 396-7035. World Access for the Blind is at 5761 Middlecoff Drive.

Editor’s note: You can now follow Chris Epting on Twitter at www.twitter.com/chrisepting.

CHRIS EPTING is the author of 14 books, including the new “Huntington Beach Then & Now.” You can write him at chris@chrisepting.com . CHRIS EPTING is the author of 14 books, including the new “Huntington Beach Then & Now.” You can write him at chris@chrisepting.com .