Verbal Interactional Synchronization between Therapist and Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder during Dolphin Assisted Therapy: Five Case Studies

SIMPLE SUMMARY: This study investigates the synchrony in conversations (i.e., turn-taking) between a therapist and five children with Autism Spectrum Disorder during dolphin-assisted therapy. Videos of the first and last dolphin-assisted therapy sessions were analyzed with regard to turn-taking between the therapist and child in the presence of a dolphin. The results show that adequate turn-taking seemed to increase over time, but mainly for children who had reasonable verbal communication skills at the start of the therapy sessions. ABSTRACT: Synchronizing behaviors in interactions, such as during turn-taking, are often impaired in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Therapies that focus on turn-taking generally lead to increased social skills, less interruptions, and silent pauses, however a positive non-demanding environment is therefore thought to be beneficial. Such an environment can be achieved by incorporating animals into therapy. Our study was guided by the following research questions: (1) How can we characterize the interaction between child and therapist during dolphin-assisted therapy, with regard to synchrony in verbalizations (turn-taking) and (2) does synchrony change over the course of six sessions of therapy? To answer these questions, we performed a cross-recurrence quantification analysis on behavioral data of five children, to give a detailed view of the interaction between therapist and child in the context of dolphin-assisted therapy. We were able to detect synchrony (i.e., adequate turn-taking) in all dyads, although not all children improved equally. The differences might be explained by a delayed reaction time of some children, and their level of language development.