Indo-pacific humpback dolphins, or commonly known as
pink dolphins, is an endangered species. These dolphins start
off life grey and gradually become pink as they mature. They
can be found only off the coast of China, Singapore, Thailand,
and Vietnam. Pink Dolphin Encounter is a special program
designed for children with autism and conducted at the Dolphin
Lagoon by trained dolphin therapists from the Underwater
World Singapore (UWS). It is a unique form of autism therapy
using pink dolphins in the Dolphin Lagoon (Fig. 2). The program
offered children with autism a chance to interact with
these marine creatures; and to boost the self-confidence of these
children when they physically encounter the pink dolphins in
the lagoon [42]. Research based on this program suggested that
there was a good reduction in stereotyped behavior with a slight
improvement in their awareness of the surroundings [43], [24].
However, the program has its limitations. From 2007 to 2011,
only 32 children with autism were admitted to undergo this
therapy. The program was only open to such children of local
residents. All these children took turns to have one-to-one encounter
with one or two dolphins. As the Dolphin Lagoon is
in outdoor area, the program may be affected by the weather
conditions. There were also risks to put those children with
poor health or physiological challenges in water. Also dolphins
are after all animals with nonhuman behavior and they are not
easy to be manipulated to meet the special needs of children
with autism. Most importantly, the pink dolphins are endangered
species.
From local or the region, there is an increasing interest from
persons with autism or their families to participate in the Pink
Dolphin Encounter Program. In Singapore, there are 5472 children
with autism of ages 19 or below according to the Academy
of Medicine Singapore and Ministry of Health (AMS-MOH)
[7]. Each year about 400 new cases of children with autism are
diagnosed. So given limited number of pink dolphins available
the physical Pink Dolphin Encounter program is not scalable.
This motivates us to develop an alternative solution.