The Secret Language of Dolphins

by Patricia St. John

In her extraordinary work with dolphins, Patricia St.John broke new ground in opening little-known worlds, all in pursuit of what she fiercely believed in: learning the languages of those who have been unreachable. Using what she has discovered from her years of work with dolphins, St.John was able to break through to autistic children. Her story is a remarkable one.

Said the author: "When I left the pool that first day, I had no way of knowing I was taking the first steps toward breaking the barriers of dolphin-human communication...[or that] I would go on to find a way to use what I'd learned to improve the condition of other humans. At that first meeting, I had no idea how this information would enable me to eventually free autistic children to communicate with those who cared for them and about them."

Genres: Nonfiction

268 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1999

About the author

Patricia St. John is the founder of MID*POINT, a foundation that studies new methods of communication. A fellow of the Explorers Club, St. John travels the world working with wild dolphins and lecturing on the subject of communication.

Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

It started out interesting enough, but I quickly found myself annoyed by such things as the author refering to her insights as "discoveries" when they might better be termed hypetheses, and untestable at that. Still, with that firmly in mind, the bulk of the book is not so very implausible. Behavior modification at its most basic. Having said that, I cannot help thinking that anyone who can defend cetacean captivity and state that the dolphins are generally fine because they are willing to interact and play, clearly hasn't learned very much about dolphin captivity, despite having spent years in tanks with captive dolphins.

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing account of a woman's life "work" through challenges that made great strides in the lives of autistic children quality of life. The most poignant part to me came in the epilogue where this sentence resides, "As long as we accept and respect each other for our divergent beliefs and ways of living, then we have a way to communicate." It's all about respect for life, all forms of life, and how our own ways are not the only ways, not even necessarily the best ways.

[Kaylin Worthington · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to say, this book did not hold my attention, although I did make it through. It seemed to be missing a key component: how exactly did she transfer her knowledge of dolphins to autistic children? It didn’t exactly answer that for me, in this 9.5 hour audiobook. She said she used what she had learned from dolphins, but the only “breakthrough” she really mentioned was how Beth, an autistic girl, said one verbal word and proceeded to say much more in writing. How? What did the author do exactly to elicit this? It sounded like Beth’s mother was frantically telling her daughter to tell her to prove she was intelligent and gave her a pen and boom, LOTS of words. No explanation. Maybe there was an explanation somewhere...but if there was, I was too zoned out to understand it. However, I do believe her interactions with the dolphins is phenomenal. I feel like I learned a lot about their communication with humans in this book.

[Juliana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting conjecture. It's not my usual reading style, so I had a hard time remaining focused.

[James Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I try to keep an open mind on these things but the author is making some bald-faced assertions with no research to back her claims. She's lucky that nobody got killed while they were jacking around with dolphins; expecting them to "teach" humans. The ESP thing was annoying and so was the author's assumptions that the dolphins (and autistic children, apparently) could read her mind; or at least intuit her emotional desires. This was a hard one to get through but I do like to challenge myself with other viewpoints.

[Stacie Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a biography about a school teacher who has some unusual gifts, she is drawn to work with dolphins - where this gift is amplified and this then leads her to work with autistic children, where she is able to communicate in ways others have not been able to. It was fascinating to me. The book was published first in '91

[Nancy · Rating 1 out of 5]

awful, she seemed like a woo-woo crackpot. On tape, okay reader, pitiful writing.