(Presented by Megan Butterworth and Angela Watts)

The dolphin-assisted therapy is used to help children with severe disabilities to learn new motor and language skills. The dolphins most commonly used in this therapy are bottlenose dolphins. In the therapy, the children are required to perform a certain motor skill such as placing a ring on a peg or a language skill such as saying a new word or phrase. When the children perform the new skill successfully they are rewarded with a dolphin interaction. There are many different types of interactions. This therapy is used to increase the patient’s motivation and attention span (Nathanson et al, 1997). They want to perform the tasks correctly because they have learned that they will get to "play with the dolphins" if they do. There are many dolphin therapy labs worldwide but in the United States they are centered in the Florida Keys. This therapy is very interesting to learn about.

Why is dolphin-assisted therapy useful? Therapy reduces stress, which is important to the improvement of a patient. This therapy helps to alleviate depression by lifting the spirits of patients. Dolphins retain the attention of the patient allowing for more focusing to occur. Therapy offers positive reinforcement for a task performed by a child. Patients with physical disabilities need this positive reinforcement therapy (Nathanson et al, 1997).

Children with many different varieties of disabilities are used in this type of therapy. Some of the diseases used are autism, down syndrome, deaf and hard of hearing, cerebral palsy, vision impairments, spinal cord injuries, cancer, attention deficit disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder (Dolphin Research Center, 1999).

Various animals are used along with therapy sessions. Some examples are dogs, cats, birds, hamsters, and horses. Animals are very useful in therapy because they are not judgmental, and are very accepting. Animals increase the creativity of a child and add humor to a situation. Animals also help with therapy at home. Studies have shown that elderly people who own pets make fewer visits to the doctors compared to those who do not have pets (Burke 1992).

Therapists believe that a child works in steps in forming a healthy relationship for therapy. First, the child will form a relationship with the animal. Next, the child will form a relationship with their peers. Finally, the child will form a relationship with the therapist. After this occurs more intensive therapy can start ( Golin 1994).

The original study was performed in 1978-79 at Ocean World in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. It then developed into a full-time daily therapy when Dr. David E. Nathanson conducted his pilot study in 1988. He hypothesized that the children with attention deficit disorder were not able to learn as much as they could in conventional classroom studies because the tasks that they were performing did not maintain their attention. He thought that if they rewarded the patients with dolphin interactions for their tasks completed that the dolphins would maintain their attention span and overall, they would learn more (Dolphin Research Center, 1999). He used experiments very much like the one performed in this paper. There has been evidence that children learn 2 to 10 times more when in dolphin-assisted therapy as compared to conventional classroom therapy. There are many labs in the Florida Keys. Some examples are Dolphin Plus in Key Largo, Miami Seaquarium in Virginia Key, and the main research center the Dolphin Research Center in Grassy Key (Livermore, 1991).

There are many reasons why dolphins are useful in therapy. It has been hypothesized that dolphins are intelligent and have a developed learning style. The dolphins have social behaviors in which they interact with one another. The children can relate to a playful dolphin and their social behavior. Dolphins are able to retain the attention of a patient. This allows the patient to keep their focus towards a task. The child’s reward for performing a task is to interact with a dolphin. Dolphin therapy utilizes water because it is a stress reliever, it helps increase motor skills, and it allows a patient to be more flexible. Also, the water helps relieve some of the patient’s pain.

There are three theoretical bases for dolphin human therapy. The attention deficit hypothesis states that distractions keep a child from learning. Children need to have something to maintain their attention to be able to learn. They used operant conditions in the treatment. Finally there needs to be an interdisciplinary team, a well-rounded team of physical and occupational therapist along with psychologist, medical staff and social work. All of these fields should work with the family to help with therapy (Nathanson et al, 1997).

The children chosen for this study had to meet certain criteria. The study group consisted of 47 children, 20 of which were female and 27 of which were male. They ranged in age from 2 years 3 months to 13 years 4 months. This was done to look at overall results in all age classifications. The children were required to have a severe disability. They had to have had at least 6 months of conventional classroom therapy immediately prior to their dolphin-assisted therapy sessions. The children’s health records from these conventional sessions were required so that the dolphin-therapy results could be compared for each specific child. This study was conducted in 1995-96 and consisted of a two-week period with 17 sessions for each child. The goal for each child was that they could achieve a new motor skill or language skill that they could not perform after the conventional therapy or before the start of the dolphin therapy (Nathanson et al, 1997).

The experiment was started with a random selection process of participants. The children were split up into one of two groups. The first group, Group 1, focused on improvement of motor skills. There were 17 children in this group. The second group, Group 2, focused on the increase in language. There are 30 children in this group. The controls for the experiment were that each child was separate from the rest of the group and worked with one dolphin. The same child worked with the same dolphin, the same therapist and the same trainer during their sessions. There was a 40-minute session each day for 2 weeks (Nathanson et al, 1997).

The research was conducted on a single subject basis. This was done so that the therapists could differentiate between individual results. The study was much more informative this way and provided more detailed results. It is consistent to use a single subject research method when testing individuals. This type of research meets federal regulations in that it is required that children with special disabilities receive one-on-one therapy sessions. Single subject research meets the true experimental design (Nathanson et al, 1997).

The children were rewarded for their accomplishments by interacting with the dolphins. The patients in the study are motivated by the rewards they receive. There were different types of rewards the child could receive. The child could simply touch the dolphin or pet the dolphin. They could give the dolphin a command by a signal, or they may give the dolphin a kiss. The child could play with a toy, which could be the child’s favorite toy or a toy that the child wants the dolphin to play with (Nathanson 1993). The ultimate reward in the water was to get a dorsal ride from the dolphin (Nathanson 1989).

There were two hypotheses tested in this experiment one for each group. The hypothesis for group 1 was that there would be no significant difference in the child’s motor response with long-term conventional physical therapy and short-term dolphin-assisted therapy. The hypothesis for group 2 was that there would be no significant difference in the child’s verbal response in long-term speech therapy and short-term dolphin-assisted therapy (Nathanson et al, 1997).

Both hypotheses were rejected when the experiment was complete. There were improvements seen in the patients when working with dolphins in the therapy sessions. In Group1: 12 of the17 children showed improvement in motor skills from working with the dolphins compared to 0 out of 17 seen in conventional therapy. In Group2: there were 17 children out of 30 that showed improvement in language skills from working with the dolphins. This could be a word or a phrase in response to a question or action. This is compared to 0 out of 30 with conventional therapy (Nathanson et al, 1997).

This research is useful because it is much shorter therapy. Short-term therapy is cheaper and more cost efficient for the patients and their families. One would think that dolphin therapy would be more expensive than long-term classroom therapy but when you look at the overall time difference it is evident why it is cheaper. Two weeks compared to a 6-month therapy is quite a difference. Because the patients are more motivated with the dolphins they are learning more skills faster. They are motivated to move on to the next level of functioning because they receive the rewards with the dolphins. This type of therapy does not replace conventional therapy but it does compliment it in a very unique way (Nathanson et al, 1997).

There are some new approaches being done to improve the information dealing with dolphin-assisted therapy sessions. New cases are to be studied with children with head injuries, schizophrenia and cancers as well as other diseases. Testing the effects of sonar of the dolphins and the relation to humans is being done. Also the immune system is being studied to see if dolphins can affect it in any way (Nathanson et al, 1997).

There is some concern out there about the interactions between the dolphins and humans. The National Marine and Fisheries Service has issued regulations for the therapy. They are concerned with increase levels of stress in the dolphins, transmissions of diseases between the two, and the risk of injury to humans. To help prevent some of these things dolphins from the wild are not used in this therapy. The dolphins used are all born in captivity and they are kept in natural lagoon settings to make it more natural for the dolphins (Nathanson et al, 1997).

However useful this therapy may seem to be there is no proven scientific data that supports the fact that dolphin-assisted therapy increases learning in disabled humans. It has been proven though that the children are learning 2 to 10 times faster when in dolphin-assisted therapy settings as compared to conventional classroom studies. Studies are currently being performed on this therapy but it is very difficult to measure things like learning and motivation levels (Nathanson et al, 1997). Scientists hope to learn more about the therapy in the future.

Literature cited

Burke, Sarah. 1992. In the presence of animals: health professionals no longer scoff at the therapeutic effects of pets. 112(7): 64-65.

Dolphin Research Center. 1999. Information Files: Dolphin/Child department. Dolphin Research Center publication. Accessed March 3, 1999. Pages 1-13.

Golin, M. and Therese Walsh. 1994. Heal emotions with fur, feathers and love. Prevention. 46(12):80-84.

Livermore, B. 1991. Water wings: swimming with dolphins may be the boost special kids need. Sea Frontiers. March/April:45-9,54-5.

Nathanson, D.E., and Sherri de Faria. 1993. Cognitive improvement of mentally handicapped children in water with and without dolphins. Anthrozoos. 4.

Nathanson, D.E., Donny de Castro, Heather Friend and Marcia McMahon. 1997. Effectiveness of short-term dolphin-assisted therapy for children with severe disabilities. Anthrozoos. 10(2/3):90-9.

Nathanson, D.E. 1989. Using atlantic bottlenose dolphins to increase cognition of metally retarded children. Clinical and Abnormal Psychology.

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