The story of Daniel Kish is truly amazing. I have never really thought of the concept of expectations changing people's behavior. Daniel was able to rise above all odds because due to the fact that his mother did not limit her expectations for him. Even though Daniel eye balls were removed due to cancer when he was a toddler he never saw himself as blind. Daniel learned at a very young age to make clicks with his tongue to understand where he was in space at any given time. Although Daniel 100% blind he moved through life as a seeing person. He attended regular schools, walk long distances, climbed trees, attend college and also do the amazing task of riding a bike. Daniel was able to go through life without the limitations of being a blind man by learning echolocation at very young age. To echolocate, Daniel learned to click his tongue sending out sound waves from his mouth and when the sound waves hit an object they produce echoes. This is the same concept that bats use to get around and that is how Daniel got the name Batman. Daniel was able to persevere because his mom refused to put limitations on him. In fact the mother was told by doctors and family that she needed to wrap Daniel up in some cotton as a toddler so that he would not hurt himself. However Daniel's mom chose to not limit him and let him learn things on his own as a seeing child. As Daniel encounter other blind individuals he realized they were very limited in how they moved through life and he want to help children that were blind to use echolocation so that they too can go life without limitations however Daniel and his college came to a great stumbling block love. Parents were very skeptical to give their children the freedom that Daniel's mom gave him. One example of this is when Daniel and his colleague were working with this 5yr old boy Nathan learning echolocation. They had Nathan walking toward the sound of moving cars. As Nathan walked toward the cars his God-Mother came a screamed grabbed Nathan. The God-Mother asked the question what happens he moves a second to early. That's when Daniel and his colleague that parents instinct in most cases would hinder them in the echolocation training, Love was their biggest obstacle. Not many parents are willing to take a hands off approach with their blind children as Daniels mom did. Another amazing discovering in this interview was that Daniel was 49 years old and had never been in an intimate relationship. Daniel stated he was never the one for love as a kid he did not like lapping, holding hands or giving hugs. In fact he hand nightmares about being touched. It seem that Daniel never received that intimacy from his mother because of her hands off approach,. The question is was Daniel somewhat neglected as a child. He mom was asked would she change the way she raised due to the fact he doesn’t care for love. Daniel simply said “no he's happy”.

As I look at this story from a theorist perspective. I feel that Daniel’s story aligns a little with Piaget Theory. According to Piaget Children: construct their own knowledge in response to their experiences, learn many things on their own without the intervention of older children or adults, and are intrinsically motivated to learn and do not need rewards from adults to motivate learning. Chapter 6 in life-span human development talks about Methods of Studying Infant Perception. The four methods are Habituation, Preferential looking, evoked potentials, and operant conditioning. The chapter also talks vision of infants. Vision is present at birth, infants can detect changes in brightness visually track moving objects. By 4 months they can discriminate colors, have visual acuity at about 8 inches. During this time infants Prefer contour, contrast,&movement, Prefer complex over simple patterns, and Prefer human face over all. Infants also has depth perception. Newborns appear to have size constancy. The talks the visual cliff: Gibson & walk (1960). A crawler (7 mo) will not cross the cliff they can perceive the cliff by 2 months. Fear of drop-off requires crawling this suggest that infants as intuitive theorists: able to make sense of the world. These studies bring me back to the amazing story of Daniel. Daniel did not become a 100% blind until he was a toddler after having eyes balls removed. Daniel could have also experienced this development of perception in his infancy stages as well. This would explain how he was able to use echolocation so well. In the audio about Daniel it stated that his colleague Brain lost his sight at the age of 18 due to an accident but once he learned echolocation he could still see images. This also probably why Daniel sensors were able to respond and light up during the object experience.

I really reflected on my own practices and my expectations of people after listening to this audio. Can you imagine if everyone took on the concept that their expectations can influence the actions and behaviors of others how powerful that would be. As a Christian we have adapted a similar concept of Speaking Things into Existence. Meaning that we speak things that are not as they were and if we truly believe and claim those things they will come to past. So can truly grasp this expectations concept. I this if therapist use this concept in the work that they do with clients they would have great outcomes.