C. Dolphin-Assisted Autism Therapy
Dolphin-assisted autism therapy has become a topic recently
of public and research interest. It involves encounters between
dolphins and children with autism. Typically, such children
spend the initial times (usually for the first three sessions)
on out-of-pool activities (e.g., watching video on dolphins,
listening to audio records of dolphin sounds, touching and
feeling a model dolphin made of fiberglass) to prepare them for
the encounter with real dolphins, but subsequently, significant
times are spent engaging in poolside activities (e.g., touching or
patting a dolphin as it swims past the poolside, hand gesturing
to the dolphin to perform certain tricks) and towards the last five
sessions of the program, swimming in the pool with dolphins.
Claims of benefits from this form of autism therapy include
better attention [22], [23], an increased somatic awareness of
the surrounding environment [24], improvement in gross and
fine motor skills [25] and nonverbal communication, especially
in using hand gestures that can progress to teach functional sign
language at a later stage [26].