[blindkid] swimming lessons

Richard Holloway rholloway at gopbc.org
Tue Jun 1 17:07:01 UTC 2010


Kathy,

When you say "lessons", is this a class or private instruction?

We started Kendra (who also has no vision at all) quite young, first  
attempting classes. We stopped after the first class because despite  
early discussions with them, they were clueless in conveying the  
concept and we could see it was going to go nowhere. They started with  
telling kids to "blow out the candle" by having them hold up a finger  
in the water and then blowing at it. Not the most intuitive concept  
for a blind child of 3 or 4, and it sort of went downhill from there...

Fortunately, soon after that, we found a private instructor (not  
inexpensive) who works one-on-one with all sorts of special needs  
kids. That she works with a variety of kids had given her an array of  
concepts to work with and she is VERY patient. The main adaptation has  
(obviously) been to describe and often physically demonstrate or  
gently manipulate Kendra to get the concepts. I have no doubt that her  
progress has been a good deal slower than her sighted counterparts  
would have been in many cases. While Kendra tends to stay right with  
(or often ahead of) her peers in academic areas, in this case, some  
things are harder for her to master-- it is the age old problem of a  
lack of incidental learning through observation as much as anything  
else-- she has, after all, never WATCHED anyone else swim...

This has not, however, stopped her from becoming quite a good swimmer.  
She's not afraid to jump into a pool or even off a diving board or  
platform once she's comfortable she knows where the water is, and  
we're talking about water that is deep enough that she cannot touch  
the bottom of the pool. Her biggest ongoing issue is swimming  
straight. She (like most of us) naturally pulls harder with her  
dominant arm than the other and with no visual reference and very  
little else to guide her, it is a real effort to try and keep her  
going straight in a lane, but then our goal is not to have an olympic  
swimmer here, it is for her to have the experience of the motion and  
to enjoy herself as well as to know that if she falls into a lake or a  
pool, she can safely swim to the edge or get on her back and float.  
Where so many kids get their motion from running around, for our  
daughter, much of her motion is from swimming and also jumping in a  
trampoline. She may do that for as much as 30 minutes or an hour on  
most days-- sometimes more.

Interestingly, while Kendra is rather sound sensitive-- afraid of many  
machine sounds or even applause, and avoids things like auditoriums &  
crowd noises, the fact that most of her lessons have been in an large  
indoor pool with TONS of noise seems to have no effect on her-- she  
likes the swimming so much that she ignores the loud sounds more than  
in any other situation by far. We've had Kendra in quite a few  
things-- yoga, gymnastics classes, music classes, years of dance  
classes, etc., but swimming has been far and away a favorite among her  
activities.

One other things she really likes a lot is yoga and we have had great  
success with that too, but also in much the same circumstance--  
private instruction with a patient instructor often with detailed  
demonstration by an instructor who doesn't  mind a little girl feeling  
her arms, legs, and even body (a recent distraction as the instructor  
is now pregnant, LOL)., as she demonstrates things and then there  
sometimes needs to be some gentle manipulation of the student by the  
teacher as well to get into position, especially when learning  
something new. With both yoga and swimming, as you go further along,  
you have more concepts for a foundation and there seems to be less  
"hands-on" needed and more referring to earlier concepts-- "This is  
like Downward Dog, except..." or "remember how the back stroke feels?,  
well start with that and then..."

Again, the key is going to be a relationship with the instructor which  
allows your child to understand how to move in and around the water.  
No matter if this is private or group teaching, there needs to me a  
way for Addison to know how to move her arms and legs the right way  
and what her body position ought to be. As there are often other  
instructors working in the same pool during our lessons with other  
(sighted) kids, I know it is not that unusual to have a good deal of  
"hands on" teaching in the water to begin with, but the things that  
would generally move more quickly to "now, watch how I do this" simply  
have to be described when possible or physically demonstrated in an  
appropriate way when it is not possible to simply describe.

A well-meaning family member, when he first learned of Kendra's  
blindness commented early-on how sad he was over all the things that  
Kendra would never get to do. One of those things was actually jumping  
into a pool and swimming. He didn't know any better, nor did we I  
guess at that time. Now we (and he) have learned that Kendra is just a  
kid who can do whatever she wants with a few adaptations here and there.

Sorry for the long response. If you have any more detailed questions,  
please feel free to contact me off list as well so I won't overwhelm  
everyone with this discussion!

Richard



On May 31, 2010, at 1:58 PM, Kathy B wrote:

> Hi All-
>
> My daughter Addison is four and is starting swimming lessons  
> tomorrow.  She's totally blind.  Do any of you have any advice or  
> suggestions that would help with her or the instructor?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Kathy
>
>
>
>
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