The goal of this study was to test if dolphin-assisted therapy could be an effective therapeutic inten/ention for children with significant social and communication disabiiities. Furthermore, it was crucial to determine the relative importance of the dolphin and the parent consultation factors implicit in the therapy. The method employed was a betore-and-after comparison of three control groups and one experimental group. In the experimental group, all three aspects of the therapeutic intervention-interaction with dolphins, parent counseling and a curative, relaxed environment-were included. Control group 1 (outpatient therapy group) was limited to just interaction with dolphins. In control group 2 (farm animal group), the parents were counseled after the children interacted with farm animals {which replaced dolphins). Control group 3 received no treatment. The posttreatment parent questionnaire results revealed therapeutic success in the areas of both productive and receptive language, processing of non-verbal cues, social skills, and self-confidence. Observations of parent-child interaction indicated that after treatment in the experimental group, interactions of children could be interpreted more accurately, on a iong-term basis. The discovered therapeutic effects occurred regardless of whetiner the children were in the water during therapy or not.
Dolphin-assisted therapy has frequently been criticized for a lack of empirical results and theoretical foundation. In this study, results from an innovative dolphin-assisted therapy program for children with disabilities are presented. The therapeutic program is based on a sophisticated framework and developed with reference to previous findings about special education interventions. Parental involvement was integrated purposefully into the dolphinchild interaction to initiate an improvement in parent-child interactions. The effectiveness of this approach was supported in a controlled pretest-posttest design with matched samples. Pre-testing was conducted 4 weeks before dolphin-assisted therapy commenced, and post-testing occurred 4 weeks and 6 months after it finished. In total, 47 children with disabilities (Down syndrome, physical or mental retardation) and their parents and pedagogic-therapeutic staff participated in the study. The results of the parental questionnaires showed stable, positive changes in children's communicative abilities and social-emotional behavior and in parental quality of life, with mainly large effect sizes. These results exceed previously published effects from animal-assisted therapy and likewise of dolphin-assisted therapy. Data derived from staff questionnaires showed a moderate therapeutic effect on one of the three factors tested in relation to children's communicative abilities, but not on the social-emotional behavior of the child. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed.
In 1970, before the introduction of prenatal diagnosis of chromosome anomalies, an unpublished questionnaire study concerning the social and emotional situation of mothers of children with Down syndrome was conducted in southern Germany. To assess the psychosocial impact of the availability of prenatal diagnosis on parents of genetically handicapped children, we re-evaluated and repeated the 1970 study over 30 years later. Although mothers' feelings of guilt for having a child with disabilities remained on a low level, today's mothers have a stronger feeling of being involuntarily segregated in society. On the other hand, they more often experience support and respect from outside, particularly through self-support groups; moreover, tendencies of active withdrawal from social life have decreased.
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