Published 1 April 2022
As a parent with a child with autism, you are always on the lookout for water.
By Belinda Lawton
As a parent with a child with autism, you are always on the lookout for water – rivers, drains, lakes, dams, baths, swimming pools – whether they’re the temporary blow-up variety, or inground or above ground – because they are a magnet.
The siren call of water is noted in many children with autism. One of the first signs for my child of autism was his fascination with drains. Where did they go? Could you get in them? Would there be an exciting ride to be had through the tunnels all the way to the ocean?
The second sign was the absence of any sense of personal risk and safety. That came through in always running in carparks without looking, but also in his love of water of all kinds and his willingness to dash straight in, whether an adult was with him or not.
For the water is a double-edge sword: a place where he can relax and feel precisely where his body is in space and time, the gentle lap of the water providing positive input into an over-stressed system; but also a place that has inherent risks, especially for a child with no innate water safety sense.
When he was a baby, I enrolled him in mums and bubs classes which he loved. But as he moved into more formal swimming instruction, he got more and more distressed and overwhelmed.
The typical kids swimming lessons with all the chatter and noise, the heat from the indoor pool area, arms and legs bumping into each other, the turn taking, the downtime between turns, the military-precision of the timing in and out as the half hour clicked over was all too much.
But more than most kids, he needed those lessons, the drilling again and again of the fundamentals of water safety because they did not come naturally.
This wasn’t about developing beautiful strokes in the water; it was about not panicking when the water got deeper unexpectedly, finding his way to the edge, knowing never to enter the water alone.
So we switched to one-on-one lessons at a less busy pool, outside of peak lesson time. Fewer kids, less noise and uninterrupted contact between the instructor and him for half an hour.
His swimming instructor is kind, patient and sets firm boundaries in and around the water. Everything about the class is structured to be predictable, with adaptions and changes to normal class programs made along the way to adjust for his needs.
He is improving slowly but surely. His absolute joy on the day he learned to float on his back was a landmark moment; he can now reach the national benchmark of floating for two minutes.
This term he learned that if someone is in trouble in the water you don’t just blindly jump in to help. He’s been proudly pointing out things you can use to assist people in danger – rope, pool noodles, kick boards, esky lids that float.
One-on-one classes are more expensive, and at this stage we are not covered by the NDIS for the extra costs.
But children with autism are three times more likely to drown than other children, and that figure may well be an underestimate. Many children aren’t diagnosed with autism until they reach school, so we simply don’t know how many children in that under five age group who drown had undiagnosed autism.
We’ve been incredibly fortunate to find a learn-to-swim program where the instructors will work with my child and make the adjustments he needs to be able to learn. By the time he is a teenager he’ll be a competent swimmer – not necessarily elegant, but safe.
If you’re a parent looking for swimming classes for your child with autism, there are swim schools who are willing to help make learning to swim a positive experience for your child. Because every child deserves to experience the sheer joy of swimming.
