Frickin' Dolphins Revisited

Dolphin gives NJ boy a voice

Dolphins are not miracle workers.

But don’t tell that to Patty and David Rodriguez from Ridgefield, New Jersey.

They recently took their 12 year-old son, David, to Dolphin Cove in the Cayman Islands to participate in the Rapid Development Therapy program.

David is a special needs child with symptoms of autism and other developmental disorders. His condition has gone undiagnosed by doctors after endless MRI scans and tests, although his parents have heard the phrase “nonspecific global development delay.”

For his entire life, he has had trouble communicating verbally and nonverbally, which has led to frustration and anger for him and his parents. Quite simply, he would not speak. The only sounds that he made were cries.

He refused to drink water – he only took small sips of chocolate milk – which led to painful ulcers, indigestion, acid reflux and dehydration.

When his parents took him out in public, there was a good chance that little David would break down in a screaming tantrum.

“We have had this young boy for 12 years in a glass room, without windows and without doors,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “We have been trying desperately to get in and he has been banging on the glass, desperate to get out.”

They were at the end of their rope – hopeless, desperate. They had tried everything, from feeding therapy at St. Joseph’s Hospital to physical therapy at the Children’s Hospital at Hackensack University Medical Center.

“We had exhausted all the resources around us,” Patty said. “Having a sense of hope was getting tough.”

Then they found Ziggy…

More http://bergennow.com/component/content/article/204/1836.html

Related:

• Virtual Dolphin Therapy
  
• Is Dolphin Therapy Dangerous? (Great Penn and Teller Video too)
• Call for Ban on Dolphin Assisted Therapy
• Dolphin Assisted Therapy Does Not Aid Recovery
• Miracles Of Dolphin Assisted Therapy Research
• A contribution to the science of Dolphin-Assisted Therapy
• Is Dolphin Assisted Therapy Research The Answer?
• Dolphin Therapy For Autistic Children
• Controversial Dolphin Assisted Therapy (DAT): A Note from Ann Novek
• The Promise Of Dolphin -Assisted Therapy
• Dolphins and People...
• Dolphin Assisted Therapy
• Swimming With Dolphins May Not Have Any Health Benefit
• Dolphin Experience 2008
• Swimming With Dolphins An Aquatic Adventure
• Dolphins and Kids
• Something's Fishy
• Does dolphin-assisted therapy really work?
• Swimming With Dolphins Doesn't Confer Any Benefits
• Dolphin Disappointments
• Healing yourself in the new earth
• Dolphin Assisted Therapy
• Dobbs defends dolphins rights to interact with people.
• Dolphin Therapy Smells Fishy
• Dolphin way of life

VIRTUAL Dolphin Therapy for Autism

BBC News - East Yorkshire man invents dolphin therapy device

A marine engineer has invented a substitute for swimming with dolphins.

The device, called the Dolphin Dome, uses video screens and the sounds of the sea to recreate the sensation of being in the ocean with the animals.

Interacting with the aquatic mammals is claimed to have a beneficial effect for people with certain conditions, such as autism and cerebral palsy.

Paul Obernay hopes his invention will offer a cheaper and more accessible therapy for people with special needs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-13544115

Related:

• Is Dolphin Therapy Dangerous? (Great Penn and Teller Video too)
• Call for Ban on Dolphin Assisted Therapy
• Dolphin Assisted Therapy Does Not Aid Recovery
• Miracles Of Dolphin Assisted Therapy Research
• A contribution to the science of Dolphin-Assisted Therapy
• Is Dolphin Assisted Therapy Research The Answer?
• Dolphin Therapy For Autistic Children
• Controversial Dolphin Assisted Therapy (DAT): A Note from Ann Novek
• The Promise Of Dolphin -Assisted Therapy
• Dolphins and People...
• Dolphin Assisted Therapy
• Swimming With Dolphins May Not Have Any Health Benefit
• Dolphin Experience 2008
• Swimming With Dolphins An Aquatic Adventure
• Dolphins and Kids
• Something's Fishy
• Does dolphin-assisted therapy really work?
• Swimming With Dolphins Doesn't Confer Any Benefits
• Dolphin Disappointments
• Healing yourself in the new earth
• Dolphin Assisted Therapy
• Dobbs defends dolphins rights to interact with people.
• Dolphin Therapy Smells Fishy
• Dolphin way of life

Dogs, Dolphins and... Elephant Therapy for Autistic Children?

Dogs, Dolphins and... Elephant Therapy for Autistic Children?

There have been numerous reports of the benefits of therapy dogs for autistic children and some have sung praises for having autistic children swim with dolphins. In Thailand, elephant therapy with, yes, elephants has been found to help some autistic children. Nuntanee Satiansukpong, head of the occupational therapy department at Chiang Mai University, first thought that elephants might be beneficial for the sensory issues that many autistic children struggle with.

Related:

• Is Dolphin Therapy Dangerous? (Great Penn and Teller Video too)
• Call for Ban on Dolphin Assisted Therapy
• Dolphin Assisted Therapy Does Not Aid Recovery
• Miracles Of Dolphin Assisted Therapy Research
• A contribution to the science of Dolphin-Assisted Therapy
• Is Dolphin Assisted Therapy Research The Answer?
• Dolphin Therapy For Autistic Children
• Controversial Dolphin Assisted Therapy (DAT): A Note from Ann Novek
• The Promise Of Dolphin -Assisted Therapy
• Dolphins and People...
• Dolphin Assisted Therapy
• Swimming With Dolphins May Not Have Any Health Benefit
• Dolphin Experience 2008
• Swimming With Dolphins An Aquatic Adventure
• Dolphins and Kids
• Something's Fishy
• Does dolphin-assisted therapy really work?
• Swimming With Dolphins Doesn't Confer Any Benefits
• Dolphin Disappointments
• Healing yourself in the new earth
• Dolphin Assisted Therapy
• Dobbs defends dolphins rights to interact with people.
• Dolphin Therapy Smells Fishy
• Dolphin way of life

‘Dolphin Boy’ documentary draws attention to value of dolphin therapy | Good News - Yahoo! News

‘Dolphin Boy’ documentary draws attention to value of dolphin therapy | Good News - Yahoo! News

By all accounts, Morad was a regular 17-year-old boy from a loving home in a small northern Israeli village. He excelled in school and enjoyed spending time with his friends.

That was before an innocent text message sent to a female classmate got intercepted by the girl's older brother, who misinterpreted the text as flirtation.

That night, the brother kidnapped Morad, and along with several cohorts, beat him within an inch of his life. Morad's injuries were so severe he required 11 days of hospitalization. When he regained consciousness, he was so traumatized he had effectively dissociated from reality.

"I haven't seen that degree of severity even in older people," said Dr. Ilan Kutz, former director of Psychiatric Services at the Meir General Hospital, where he treated Morad. "It usually lasts a few hours at most; never anything this long."

Repeated attempts to reach Morad failed, and after two months of non-responsiveness and a deteriorating psychological condition, Kutz decided to try an experimental method: dolphin therapy.

Related:

• Is Dolphin Therapy Dangerous? (Great Penn and Teller Video too)
• Call for Ban on Dolphin Assisted Therapy
• Dolphin Assisted Therapy Does Not Aid Recovery
• Miracles Of Dolphin Assisted Therapy Research
• A contribution to the science of Dolphin-Assisted Therapy
• Is Dolphin Assisted Therapy Research The Answer?
• Dolphin Therapy For Autistic Children
• Controversial Dolphin Assisted Therapy (DAT): A Note from Ann Novek
• The Promise Of Dolphin -Assisted Therapy
• Dolphins and People...
• Dolphin Assisted Therapy
• Swimming With Dolphins May Not Have Any Health Benefit
• Dolphin Experience 2008
• Swimming With Dolphins An Aquatic Adventure
• Dolphins and Kids
• Something's Fishy
• Does dolphin-assisted therapy really work?
• Swimming With Dolphins Doesn't Confer Any Benefits
• Dolphin Disappointments
• Healing yourself in the new earth
• Dolphin Assisted Therapy
• Dobbs defends dolphins rights to interact with people.
• Dolphin Therapy Smells Fishy
• Dolphin way of life

Dolphin Therapy Studies are Methodologically Flawed.

More data confirming that dolphin therapy may be fun, but it's hard to call it a treatment. (It's also dangerous)

As for the presumed curative powers of swimming with dolphins, researchers at Emory University who reviewed the dolphin therapy studies concluded that every one purporting to document positive health effects was methodologically flawed.

FULL ARTICLE: NY TIMES: Fido’s No Doctor. Neither Is Whiskers.

Dolphin Therapy for Autism Revisited

I'm not really a fan of Dolphin Therapy and have written in the past about the fact that it can be dangerous. Dangerous or not, it's popularity continues to grow.

Dolphin therapy is booming despite concerns about efficacy and animal cruelty
By Katherine Ellison

Special to The Washington Post

Do you or does your child suffer from cerebral palsy? Down syndrome? Autism? A knee injury? General ennui?

If you do -- and you have a week or two and a few thousand dollars to spare -- a growing and controversial group of global entrepreneurs claims it can help you feel better by putting you in close contact with dolphins.

The strategy is known as dolphin-assisted therapy, and the basic idea is that even brief exposure to these charismatic creatures -- swimming around with them, petting and kissing them, watching them do tricks and hearing their clicking calls in tanks, lagoons or the open ocean -- is so uniquely rewarding that it produces benefits all by itself and/or jump-starts a patient's receptiveness to more-conventional therapy.

Emory University neuroscientist Lori Marino, who has spent more than a decade tracking the trend, estimates there are now more than 100 organizations offering therapy with dolphins. They're found in such widely scattered places as Florida, Hawaii, Mexico, Israel, Australia and Ukraine, and a study cited in 2007 by the international Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society said a typical charge was $2,600 for five 40-minute sessions.

Their approaches vary widely: At one end are relatively conservative nonprofits such as Island Dolphin Care, which operates programs for "special needs" children out of a $2 million facility in the Florida Keys; its Web site acknowledges that "there is no scientific proof that [dolphins] heal nor is there proof that they do not heal" and attributes most children's progress to being in "an environment that is highly motivating."

At the other end are more imaginative operations, such as the Dolphin Connection, based in the small Hawaiian town of Kealakekua, where Joan Ocean, described on her Web site as a "psychologist, shaman, and authority on the subject of Dolphin Tel-Empathic Communication," charges $1,995 for week-long swim-with-dolphin programs offering "cellular communication and healing" and "intergalactic journeying."

The dolphin-therapy business has been booming, fueled in part by the rapid growth in diagnoses of childhood mental disorders such as autism. Desperate parents in search of cures have flown to the facilities, as if to a seaside Lourdes, when all else has failed.

The practice, however, is fiercely criticized by researchers and marine mammal conservationists, including the educational anthropologist widely credited with having invented it, retired Florida International University researcher Betsy Smith. These critics charge that it is no more effective and considerably more expensive than skillful conventional treatment, while potentially harmful to the humans and the animals.

Smith, who was originally inspired by watching a dolphin interact with her mentally disabled brother in the 1970s, offered the therapy free of charge for more than a decade, before abandoning the work out of ethical concerns in the 1990s. She now maintains that dolphin therapy boils down to "the exploitation of vulnerable people and vulnerable dolphins."

"When I started this whole thing, I had no idea what we were unleashing," she said in a telephone interview.

Even Ric O'Barry, who won fame in the 1960s as the trainer of TV's Flipper, has since become what he describes as a "dolphin abolitionist," opposed to all forms of dolphin captivity and domination, and leading efforts to end dolphin hunting and return captive specimens to the wild.

"It's a fascinating paradox," said Marino, who along with two colleagues described concerns about dolphins in a presentation they made in San Diego Sunday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science convention. "People are wacky about dolphins, and yet they're becoming the most abused of animals."

Dolphin therapy is not regulated by any U.S. government authority overseeing health and safety standards for either humans or dolphins.

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society has urged that the therapy be abandoned, citing reports of serious injuries to people who swim with dolphins, including bites and broken ribs, and the potential for disease transmission and stress for captive dolphins that are obliged to interact with a continuous stream of strangers and may be scratched by fingernails and jewelry.

FULL STORY: WASHINGTON POST - Dolphin therapy is booming despite concerns about efficacy and animal cruelty

Related:

• Is Dolphin Therapy Dangerous? (Great Penn and Teller Video too)
• Call for Ban on Dolphin Assisted Therapy
• Dolphin Assisted Therapy Does Not Aid Recovery
• Miracles Of Dolphin Assisted Therapy Research
• A contribution to the science of Dolphin-Assisted Therapy
• Is Dolphin Assisted Therapy Research The Answer?
• Dolphin Therapy For Autistic Children
• Controversial Dolphin Assisted Therapy (DAT): A Note from Ann Novek
• The Promise Of Dolphin -Assisted Therapy
• Dolphins and People...
• Dolphin Assisted Therapy
• Swimming With Dolphins May Not Have Any Health Benefit
• Dolphin Experience 2008
• Swimming With Dolphins An Aquatic Adventure
• Dolphins and Kids
• Something's Fishy
• Does dolphin-assisted therapy really work?
• Swimming With Dolphins Doesn't Confer Any Benefits
• Dolphin Disappointments
• Healing yourself in the new earth
• Dolphin Assisted Therapy
• Dobbs defends dolphins rights to interact with people.
• Dolphin Therapy Smells Fishy
• Dolphin way of life

Dolphin Assisted Therapy: Is DAT Dangerous?

***Re-posting this one, fixing the You Tube links and after coming across this article today ... Autism Therapy: Dolphin Therapy ***




I've seen a lot of talk of late concerning "Dolphin Assisted Therapy (DAT)" for kids with autism and other neurological conditions. Don't believe the hype that you hear about this "therapy." While it may be fun, your therapy dollars would be better spent elsewhere.

We do the horse therapy for our daughter and she loves it. I don't know about the therapeutic value, but it's a great activity. Horse "therapy", or Equine Assisted Therapy (aka - Hippotherapy) does not involve the level of danger associated with dolphin therapy and also does NOT endanger the animal. There is a big difference.

Other types of "Animal Assisted Therapy" (AAT) include, but are not limited to dogs, cats, elephants, birds, rabbits, lizards and (I kid you not) Rats. I am not knocking Rat Assisted Therapy (RAT), and the thought of it almost makes the dolphin telepathy folks seem sane. :-)

I think animals are good for kids with autism, but before you spend thousands of dollars, go rescue a dog or cat at Petfinder.com or your local pound.

The folks who push dolphin therapy often promote it as a "healing" experience and often imply that there is some magical telepathic link created between the child and the dolphin. Several even claim that the brains of kids with autism work along the same lines as the dolphins.

Originating in 1978 by Dr. David Nathanson, Dolphin Assisted Therapy (DAT) has been used as a therapeutic approach to increase speech and motor skills in patients who have been diagnosed with developmental, physical, and/or emotional disabilities, such as mental retardation, Down syndrome, and autism. It is suggested that the unconditional love and support a dolphin offers can benefit children and other mentally ill patients by helping them learn to develop trust. Many believe that dolphins have human-like emotions and the compassion that they're able to give increases self-confidence, social skills and academic achievement in children and others who may be lacking these skills. *

Lose / Lose

In reality, DAT is a lose/lose situation for the child and the dolphin. Parents spent literally thousands of dollars on this treatment that could have been better spent elsewhere. In addition to the financial strain, the kids and the dolphins are put at a great risk of injury or infection. Often these dolphins have been taken out of the wild via a process that often results in death or injury to other dolphins.

As Swim With The Dolphin (SWTD) programs and Dolphin Assisted Therapy (DAT) continue to gain popularity, we're seeing more and more dolphins being held in captivity than ever before. *

Dolphins that become desensitized towards humans are also highly at risk of getting entangled in commercial fishing nets or being hit by boat propellers.

Dolphins are bred in captivity in U.S. marine parks, but in other countries they are often taken from the wild. "If people knew how these animals were captured, I don't think they would want to swim with them in a tank or participate in DAT," Marino says, referring to an annual "dolphin drive" in Japan. "During the dolphin drives hundreds of animals are killed, or panicked and die of heart attacks, in water that's red with their blood, while trainers from facilities around the world pick out young animals for their marine parks. They hoist them out of the water, sometimes by their tail flukes, and take them away."

Each live dolphin can bring a fisherman $50,000 or more, she says. "The marine parks make millions off of dolphins, so that's a drop in the bucket. It's an irony that dolphins are among the most beloved, and the most exploited, animals in the world," Marino says.

(Physorg.com)

Safety

Putting your child in contact with a wild animal is dangerous. Yes, dolphins are cute and evolution gave them the appearance of smiling, but they are not like "Flipper." While we hate to think of them as such, but by their nature, dolphins are very aggressive predators. I saw one comment on this topic that probably sums up why people don't think they are dangerous: "They are too adorable to be dangerous!"

In contact with humans, dolphins have been known to bite and exhibit "sexually aggressive" behavior. In addition to biting, dolphins have head-butted, raked their teeth along limbs, cracked ribs, broken arms, bruised, and dragged people under water. One man in Brazil was killed when he apparently stuck something in the creature's blowhole, something I am fairly certain my daughter would want to try within the first minute of "therapy". The following story concerns a bottlenose dolphin, the same species as our old friend Flipper.

In March 1994, a bottlenose dolphin that the locals came to call Tiao began appearing on the beach near Sao Paulo. Tiao did not seem to be associated with any nearby group and was obviously attracted to humans. Such animals, often called ambassador dolphins, are rare. No one knows why they prefer to associate with humans rather than their own kind. But the attraction was mutual. According to the BBC's magazine Wildlife, "At times, Tiao would be surrounded by up to 30 people, climbing on his back, tying things to his flippers, sticking things into his blowhole, hitting him with sticks, even trying to drag him out of the water to be photographed with the family and kids on the beach." In December, after nine months of this, Tiao rammed one man to death and injured several others. *

I highly recommend you watch the Penn and Teller show Bulls*&^ on Dolphins. Part II of this episode mentions DAT for kids with special needs. WARNING: Graphic Language, Don't watch if you are easily offended. If you are not easily offended, you are in for a hilarious treat.

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

Related articles on both side of the Dolphin Therapy issue:

• Call for Ban on Dolphin Assisted Therapy


• Dolphin Assisted Therapy Does Not Aid Recovery


• Miracles Of Dolphin Assisted Therapy Research


• A contribution to the science of Dolphin-Assisted Therapy


• Is Dolphin Assisted Therapy Research The Answer?


• Dolphin Therapy For Autistic Children


• Controversial Dolphin Assisted Therapy (DAT): A Note from Ann Novek


• The Promise Of Dolphin -Assisted Therapy


• Dolphins and People...


• Dolphin Assisted Therapy


• Swimming With Dolphins May Not Have Any Health Benefit


• Dolphin Experience 2008


• Swimming With Dolphins An Aquatic Adventure


• Dolphins and Kids


• Something's Fishy


• Does dolphin-assisted therapy really work?


• Swimming With Dolphins Doesn't Confer Any Benefits


• Dolphin Disappointments


• Healing yourself in the new earth


• Dolphin Assisted Therapy


• Dobbs defends dolphins rights to interact with people.


• Dolphin Therapy Smells Fishy


• Dolphin way of life

Magic Dolphin Autism Therapy

Swimming With Dolphins - Health Benefits For All

The dolphin's 'healing' powers have been attributed to a range of factors. Some theories believe it is merely the dolphin's affection and tolerance that brings such positive results. Other rumors suggest that the dolphin's natural sonar actually triggers a healing response from within the human body.

Related:

• Dolphin Assisted Therapy: Is DAT Dangerous? (Great Penn & Teller Videos on Dolphins)