Doung, an11-year-old autistic boy, enjoys playing and touching an elephant’s trunk. The occupational therapists said it was miraculous because he used to isolate himself from others.
Doung was among four autistic children who participated in a three-week elephant therapy programme, created by the Occupation Therapy department of Chiang Mai University and the Elephant Conservation Centre in northern Lampang province.
Among the many symptoms of autism, isolation, intolerance and rejection of physical contact are most apparent. The occupational therapists said elephants had special characters which could help improve these symptoms as elephants did not move too fast or too slow. They were also polite. An elephant’s enormous size also calmed the children and made them proud when they could command the big animal.
The programme, claiming to be the world’s first elephant therapy for autistic children, encouraged the children to extend their feelings and care for elephants through a variety of activities step by step.
“The first thing these autistic children get from here is interaction with other people, self-discipline, and proper emotional expressions. In the real world they don’t have much chance to learn that much.”, said the occupational therapist, Ass. Prof. Maetisa Pongsaksri.
First of all, the therapists fitted the elephants to the children. Hyper-active children with a short attention span took care of the soft and slow elephant while isolated child who rejected social contact spent time with the agile and energetic elephant.
The children were then shown how the elephants lived, what they liked to eat and what they did. Once the children understood what the mahouts did, they had to fetch their elephant, feed and bathe it by themselves.
The last part of the therapy was to ride and learn to communicate with elephants through commands and body language. Parents of the four autistic children were very pleased with the therapy as it apparently improved the emotional and physical expressions of their children.
“Before joining the programme, my son had difficulty communicating with other people. He didn’t trust anyone. He didn’t have any friends. He just drew pictures and played with dolls. But at the camp, he played with everybody.”, said Doung's mother.
Even though therapy with elephant does not completely cure autistic symptoms, the department of Occupational Therapy hopes the therapy will encourage autistic children to live happily in society. It also looks forward to establishing a foundation, which will bring poor autistic children to join the elephant therapy.
Features : Last Update : 11:38:05 14 March 2008 (GMT+7:00)
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