Some parents, in fact, say the chance to swim with captive dolphins has changed their child's life.
Dolphins seem to have a healing touch.
One of the prime movers behind Dolphin Human Therapy , as it is known, is David Nathanson, a clinical psychologist living in Florida. In the late 1970s, he used the reward of swimming with dolphins to motivate children with Down's syndrome to learn. Since 1994, it has worked with children from over 37 states and 20 countries. While some researchers dispute the effectiveness of the program, others say the work with dolphins parallels the success of other animal therapy programs, which use everything from pet mice to racehorses to help people cope with problems in their lives. But dolphin therapy can be prohibitively expensive.