An alert student shared a video that shows the remarkable compensations of a totally blind teenager. Ben rollerblades, plays videogames, and finds his way around objects by using sound. You’ll enjoy watching this one. It’s very inspirational.
All of the students experienced a strong sensation of sweetness while sucking on lemons, and many asked for a second piece! Then the party became even more interesting when a couple of students decided to see how their Oreos would taste.
My friends in the Facebook group “Teaching Resources for Biological Psychology and Neuroscience” have shared so many exciting resources, but my favorite was the Play-Doh neuron project. Because I’ve been teaching remotely for three (!!!) Read more…
When Karla was little, I found that I had to educate my pediatricians about autism. They said they’d read about it in medical school, but it was so rare that they never expected to see Read more…
6 Comments
MollyMcLaughlin · October 29, 2006 at 6:23 pm
Wow! I can’t believe how incredible that video was! The boy in the video clip was compared to dolphins since both have remarkable hearing abilities. I decided to do some research afterwards on dolphins and found out that they lack the ability to smell. Is this a common thing — do humans/animals increase certain senses when they lose another (become deaf, blind, etc.)?
MunkeyChowFan · October 29, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Very inspiring! It definitely helps to have such a supportive, empowering mother. I know the other senses are heightened when one form is lost, but in Ben’s case, what becomes of the occipital lobe? Are new connections made to the temporal lobe? Brain plasticity is amazing.
emhughes · October 30, 2006 at 11:22 pm
This boy is truly a miracle! What a powerful thing the brain is, to be able to “re-wire” in such a way to accomodate the loss of an ability. I am not sure if this is a case of loss or the gaining of an amazing new skill.
Hepkatbritt · October 31, 2006 at 5:38 pm
I remember my mom telling me about this story less than a year ago. It is truly amasing what the brain is capeable of, and it just goes to show that there are few things out there that the human brain can’t learn. Wouldn’t it be amasing if this skill was taught to other blind children? It also makes me wonder if hearing has that critical window the same way that vision does. Is his clicking processed in the same area of the brain as language?
Laura Freberg · November 1, 2006 at 7:24 pm
These are interesting questions. Clicking is normally processed in areas near to areas that respond to speech. It would be interesting to see if Ben’s extra use of sound has produced a reorganization of his auditory cortex, which would be consistent with observations of motor cortex reorganization due to extra practice by musicians or loss of a limb.
nelsayed · December 8, 2006 at 10:19 pm
This is very inspirational. Like the doctor commented I think much of it has to do with attitude. I was privileged to have a blind teacher for chemistry. He also remains very active. I always see him running at the gym and I think it’s amazing. Its incredible how much our senses interact.
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