The Marino Swim Central Adaptive Aquatics Program has equipped our certified swim instructors with the tools to enhance the development of life saving swim skills that are interactive and promote mutual assistance, support and cooperation among all members of swim lessons. Learning to swim offers the opportunity for safety in and around the water and for a lifelong of recreational activity.
Our company primarily offers private swim lessons, offering all children the opportunity to learn life-saving swimming skills as well as important social and physical skills. Individuals with special needs who participate in swim lessons benefit physically, psychosocially, and cognitively from the experience of learning to swim. Skills for lifelong water safety, recreation, and fitness can be gained from proper swimming instruction. Swimming provides an enjoyable, soothing environment that produces physical, developmental, and emotional benefits.
Physically, water offers an environment where the effects of gravity can be easily overcome. Children whose disability impairs their mobility on land can often function in the water with less or without any external assistance. In addition, acquisition of swim skills can increase physical strength and endurance, enhance body image, increase self esteem, and provide better coordination and balance.
Individuals with developmental disabilities frequently exhibit a deficit in social skills. Private lessons will help to mainstream the participate into group lessons. Group lessons will allow for interaction among peers and provide the setting for teaching appropriate social skills, such as turn taking, listening, and getting along with others. This also provides their typical peers the opportunity to become more accepting of children that are different from them.
Cognitively, swimming can provide these individuals with the opportunity for further communication skill development. This opportunity occurs by learning and listening to swimming instruction. The buoyancy of the water promotes relaxation, which alleviates some of the stress and frustration that may be felt by an individual with developmental disabilities, because movement can be practiced without the force of gravity. Clients can also increase body awareness by learning where their body parts are in relation to each other. Those with sensory integration dysfunctions can learn to process information received through touch, movement, and body position thereby increasing gross and fine motor skills and adaptive learning abilities.
Autism In recent years, water safety has become an issue for children with autism spectrum disorder. The powerful attraction water holds for this population of children has become an area of concern. It has been noted that children with autism are best served by attending swim lessons early and often because the incidents of drowning are higher in children with autism than any other population with special needs. *Findings courtesy of The Dan Marino Swim America Foundation.