Every child needs to learn how to swim, and now the YMCA and many other institutions are offering special swimming lessons to children with special needs and learning difficulties.
For all children, swimming and swimming lessons aren’t just a fun activity. They are a tool to help children survive in dangerous situations. Often, children are exposed to water hazards for only a brief second, but swimming lessons can prevent horrible experiences turning to fatal accidents. Learning to swim is about more than swimming, it’s about becoming water safe.
The biggest and most important part of any learn to swim program is the water safety component. Teaching children how to survive in water, not to panic and to be water wise is the greatest gift for any child to learn.
Autistic children and children with other learning disabilities bring with them many other challenges to traditional learn to swim programs. Offering parents, the ability to enter the water with their child and participate in the program adds a level of comfort to children. Having instructors trained in how to speak and interact with autistic children is vital to the success of any learn to swim program.
“Water safety is a big part of what we teach,” Cassidy Peterson, lead swim instructor, added, “For some kids, this is their first time in the pool. Can they climb out of the pool? Do they know where the steps are? We are sure to teach them those things.”
If you would like to take your child for learn to swim lessons but are worried, then speak to the people offering the course. Ask them if they have dedicated instructors that have undergone training with autistic children, or they have had experience teaching other children with learning disabilities.
