I read this article in the Miami Herald
Dolphin assisted-therapy.
Basically, the claim is that through physical therapy and interaction with the dolphins, disabled children (ie. autism, down's syndrome, cerebral palsy) have had "miraculous" recoveries.
quote:
It was June 18, 1994. Kuhnert was the married mother of two kids from an upper-class family in Germany who made her living in sports event marketing.
That June day, the family had gathered at the country club to celebrate her infant daughter Kira's christening, when suddenly they realized they had lost sight of Tim, Kuhnert's 2-year-old.
''We looked for 15 minutes,'' she remembers. ``He was 15 yards away behind a hedge, in an unsecured swimming pool. This is where they found him. He was lifeless.''
Tim suffered brain damage that left him in a coma and with cerebral palsy. Kuhnert became obsessed, she says -- the type of mom who would ''fly to a rain forest and dance'' to make their kids well.
She traveled to hospitals around the globe, fought with neurologists, lost her marriage.
In 1995, Kuhnert flew from Germany to the Keys, where her little boy swam with dolphins at a facility that has since closed. After four days of being put in the water with a dolphin -- following 16 months in a coma -- Tim woke up.
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''The only thing I can tell you is that I came here with a daughter who did not speak and flew back to Holland, and she spoke,'' said Daniuq's father, Hans Kuypers, a Dutch homicide detective. ``For 10 years, I had no contact with my daughter. Now she can say why she wants to cry or has pain.
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''Therapy without the dolphin does not work. The dolphin without the therapy does not work,'' said Marco Stork, an Amsterdam newspaper ad salesman with two autistic sons. ``They work together.''
His son Damian, 8, had been in speech therapy for three years, and only started speaking after that work was combined with two weeks of two-hour-a-day swims with dolphins.
''His first word was spelen -- play,'' said Stork, who speaks Dutch. ``Something he could never have said, he said after three days here. Every day we saw a little bit more, a little more.''
What the expert had to say:
quote:
Janelle Nimer, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Tennessee who researched dolphin therapy for her three-year fellowship in veterinary medicine, says experts are not sure why the therapy shows results, but they believe it could have to do with the sonar the animals emit under water.
She tried it herself in Mexico and felt a ''high-like'' feeling for two weeks. The research, Nimer said, shows children show improvements compared to traditional therapy alone.
''All animal therapy is controversial, because it hasn't been researched as it should have been,'' she said. ``People are afraid dolphins are being mistreated. You have exotic animals and parents of autistic kids who are willing to try anything.''
...which doesn't say much.
Ok, so here's my question...Is this real?
Can the sonar emitted from dolphins actually aid with these disabilities?
Does anyone have any knowledge of how this might work, or is this just coincidence coupled with wishful thinking?
Final quote, which seems to be the skeptical opinion:
quote:
''Because of the lack of scientific study, there are two vulnerable groups being exploited: dolphins and children and parents seeking a miracle under expensive circumstances,'' said Courtney Vail, director of the Caribbean program for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. ``There is such an affinity for these animals, it's easy to believe. But if you are going to claim it has a medical benefit, you have to validate it.''
So what on earth is going on here with these kids, the dolphins, and the claimed therapeutic "miracles?"
- Oni
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