Autistic Children Can And Should Learn To Swim

23 Sep Autistic Children Can And Should Learn To Swim

How to Teach Autistic Children to Swim

From Wikihow

Swimming and being in and around water can be extremely theraputic for people with all kinds of disabilites.  This is especially the case with children that are stricken with disabilities, as they have a lifetime to attempt to navigate the world with their disability as well as to ameliorate their symptoms whenever possible.  As this post from Wikihow points out, children with autism may have a fear or dislike of water, but they can learn to swim nevertheless.  These children can reap the same theraputic benefits from swimming as anyone else, as long as the teacher understands the disability and is able to work with these children to overcome their natural aversion.

Here is an excerpt from the post:

The following tips may help an autistic child learn to swim. Sensory differences can cause children to fear or dislike water, so additional effort is required to ease the anxiety over above that experienced by children in general.

Show your students the correct technique only. When teaching autistic children, it is best to avoid the “right way versus wrong way” teaching technique. One characteristic of autistic children is that they pick up many details, and sometimes struggle to sort the irrelevant ones from the relevant ones. If you show them the wrong way, they may pick up on those details. In other words, you even have to be extra careful when demonstrating that everything you show your students is precisely what you want them to do.

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