Dolphin Therapy report from family Wedel

Written by : Family Wedel

Parent report from Leon from 11.08.2008 – 25.08.2008

This year I finally had time to write a report and I cannot even express how grateful I am towards Barbara and Daisy. We already had been to dolphin therapy last year with Leon (8).

We kept our expectations for the therapy very low so we would not be disappointed. As Leon suffers from multiple disabilities, we were not sure what kind of changes could be expected.

Leon could only speak a few words last year before the therapy, and even these few were very hard to understand. Right after the 4. therapy with Daisy, Leon started saying several words and they became more and more with time. Overall, his whole development took a giant step forwards. We still cannot believe what Daisy brought out in Leon.

Leon also has a balance problem which makes walking impossible for him. But even this has improved and he can now walk a few meters with the rollator. Because of these great improvements we decided to do another therapy. As the whole team moved in the Winter we were looking forward to our next trip to turkey even more (the Antalya Resort was not so great). We booked ourselves a room in the Grand Yaszici and it was great.

We were welcomed very friendly on our first day by Barbara, Suna and Axel and the next day we started. Even if we already knew everything, it was a great feeling saying Hello to Daisy again. Linda, the trainer had taught Daisy great tricks, so Leon always had something to laugh about.

We really enjoyed how much Barbara sang during the therapy, as children with mental retardation react well to music. Leon looked forward to seeing Daisy every day and he enjoyed the Mega-superman the most.

In the afternoon we always had physical therapy with Claudia. Leon loved this as well, as he got to play with the ball a lot. Also a big thank you to Claudia for her patience with Leon, as he was quite wild sometimes.

Unfortunately, this year the hippotherapy didn’t work as well. As it is quite a distance to Salih and there were always several children it almost took 3 hours. (35 min car ride back and forth and 45 min of riding for each child). This was too much for Leon and we had to Stopp the Hippotherapy. This was also considered into his therapy schedule and he could go to physical therapy every day.

The two weeks went by quickly and it was hard to say goodbye.

At this time Leon talks like a water fall, so that we sometimes have to interrupt him. We hadn’t dared to even dream of this. I can only encourage everyone in a similar situation with their child

A big thank you to Daisy, Barbara, Linda, Suna, Claudia and Axel & Elena

Family Wedel from Chemnitz

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