Listening for Orientation and Mobility: Hearing the Whole Picture,

March 11, 2011

Wendy Scheffers, COMSMaya Delgado Greenberg, COMS

“Most people take their hearing for granted. I can’t. My eyes are my handicap, but my ears are my opportunity. My ears show me what my eyes can’t. My ears tell me 99 percent of what I need to know about my world.”

Ray Charles, 1987

For individuals with visual impairments,hearing becomes the primary compensatorysensory system for gathering environmentalinformation beyond an arm’s reach.

What will we be covering today?

• Introduction to listening skills book and O&M chapter

• Overview of O&M listening skills• Examples of listening skills and teaching

strategies• Discussion of Auditory Space Perception (ASP)

and how to teach it• Wrap up and questions

Learning to Listen, Listening to Learn: Teaching Listening Skills to Students Who

are Visually Impaired

• A book from American Foundation for the Blind

• In press, anticipated release in fall 2011• Liz Barclay, editor

Chapters include listening skills for:

• Infants through high school• Students with additional disabilities• Students who are learning English as a second

language• Students with learning disabilities• Students who are deaf-blind• Orientation and Mobility

LISTENING SKILLS FOR ORIENTATION AND MOBILITY – HEARING THE WHOLE

PICTURE• Developmental organization of content from

infancy through adults• Listening skills for each phase of development

in bulleted lists• Teaching strategies and sample activities• Vignettes• Functional assessment of hearing

Brainstorming

• What listening skills are involved in this vignette?

O&M listening skills include:

• awareness and comparison of sounds• association of objects and their sounds• identification of sounds• sound localization• identification of environments or activities based

on sets of associated sounds• auditory attention span• auditory figure-ground• use of sounds as landmarks and reference points

to establish orientation in a familiar area

And…

• auditory space perception (ASP)• sound tracking• auditory memory and sequencing• ability to listen to verbal information and ask clarifying

questions• use of sounds to create and update a mental map of

the environment while traveling• recognition of “danger sounds” and quick response • use of technology, such as computers with speech

output, to access auditory travel information

Sound localization and tracking

Sound localization:The ability to detect the direction and distanceof a sound source (and orient and move inrelation to that sound)

Sound tracking: The ability to track and/or move in relation to amoving sound source

A young man listens for the sound of the approaching bus

Sound localization and tracking

Teach skills in order of difficulty• Child stationary with a stationary sound

source• Child stationary with a moving sound source• Child moving in relation to a stationary sound

source• Child moving in relation to a moving sound

source

Auditory Figure Ground

Figure-ground: the ability to attend to onesound, the figure, out of a sea of backgroundsound.

Soundscapes: “acoustic environments thatinclude both natural and human-made sound” (Ferrington, 2003, p. 43).

An elementary school age girl uses listening skills to locate and use a slide on a playground.

A teenager uses listening skills to analyze traffic patterns and select a safe time to cross the street

Auditory Figure Ground Activities

• Go on sound hunts.

• When in a complex soundscape, such as a mall or party, ask the person to listen to different sounds.

Identification of environments or activities based on sets of

associated sounds

Children learn to identify activities and places bytheir sounds between the ages of three and four(Anderson, Boigon, Davis, & deWaard, 2007).They come to associate a set of sounds with aparticular environment.

A three year old boy reaches out from his seat in a grocery cart to touch the fruit in the produce section of the grocery store.

Functional assessment of hearing

There are five items, including the following:• Does the child have difficulty focusing on a

specific sound source in a noisy environment, or become easily distracted by environmental sounds? This could be an indication of an auditory figure ground problem. Consider referring to a speech and language pathologist for further assessment.

Auditory Space Perception

Using acoustic cues to locate silent objects anddetect properties of objects and space, includingthe ability to:• Detect location, size, shape, density, and

distance of silent objects• Determine characteristics of space, including

size, layout, and types of objects within the space.

“When our ability to decode spatial attributes is sufficiently developed using a wide range of acoustic cues, we can readily visualize objects and spatial geometry: we can ‘see’ with our ears.” (Blesser & Salter, 2007, p.2)

Auditory Space Perception

Three ways that silent objects are detected:• Echolocation• Sound shadows• Low frequency ambient sound waves

Emerging understanding of ASP through users and research

For example:• Dan Kish, famous O&M instructor who

teaches use of ASP• Research about the types of auditory space

perception (Ashmead et al, 1998)• Recent research about the best type of sound

to use for echolocation (Martinez et al, 2009)

Sound shadow group activity

• Raise your hand when you hear presence of a sound shadow (something blocking access to direct sound)

Sound shadow and/or reflected sound?

Materials to use to illustrate and teachbeginning use of sound shadows or reflected sound:• Box • Cookie sheet

Sample strategies for teaching echolocation - start:

• Indoors• With large objects or hard wall surfaces• At close distances• With student stationary or walk with human guide

For more information

• Purchase the book: Learning to Listen, Listening to Learn: Teaching Listening Skills to Students who are Visually Impaired o American Foundation for the Blindo In press, anticipated release in fall 2011

• Or purchase an epublication of our chapter, Listening Skills for Orientation and Mobility – Hearing the Whole Picture, at AFB online bookstore at www.afb.org

Infants and young children learn to attach meaning to sound. Some of the emerging listening skills that develop at this age include:• Notice sound• Listen to a specific sound• Localize the position of the sound source• Compare how sounds are same/similar/different from other sounds• Notice if a sound is loud or soft• Notice if a sound is high or low• Notice if a sound is long or short• Identify common sounds• Associate sounds with objects• Reach toward a sound• Move toward and away from sound• Determine if a sound is near or far• Determine if a space is small or large from reflected and reverberated sound• Identify a familiar location by listening to environmental sounds

Emerging skills for young school-aged children who are listening to acquire orientation information include:• Stay focused on auditory information for several minutes, increasing the number

of minutes over time• Localize sound while moving• Travel to or away from an intermittent source of sound• Hear if a space is big or small• Hear the presence of silent objects• Use hearing to detect features of silent objects, such as size, shape, and density• Identify people, objects, and activities auditorily• Identify familiar and unfamiliar locations by listening to environmental sounds• Use sound sources for orientation and to create a mental map• Listen to a specific sound within a noisy environment• Understand spoken information• Remember verbal directions in the correct order• Listen for car sounds before crossing the street (with adult supervision)

Emerging listening skills for preteens and teenagers who are applying auditory information to community travel include:• Use auditory space perception while traveling in complex environments• Determine the relative speed of moving sound-making objects (i.e. slow or fast).• Align body and line of travel parallel or perpendicular in relation to the sound of

moving vehicles• Update mental map of current location by listening to sounds• Selectively listen to one sound within complex soundscapes• Listen to verbal information and ask clarifying questions• Recall multiple step directions in the correct sequence• Recognize “danger sounds” and respond quickly• Locate correct position to cross the street• Determine if an intersection is a safe place to cross based on sound• Select a safe timing to cross the street based on sound• Monitor traffic sounds during street crossings to ensure it is safe to continue the

crossing• Use technology to access auditory travel information