Abstract
Background: As the common population, children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) should be able to swim they should be equipped with such skills to be able to safely handle the aquatic environment and consequently to be able to make use of swimming as a lifelong physical activity for maintaining their health. Regarding the content of swimming education for children with ASD: it is based on preparatory and on the elementary swimming education programmes.
However, it is characterized by considerable peculiarities, which should be taken into account when creating such programmes. Objective: The aim of the study was to verify the effectiveness of swimming education for children with autism spectrum disorders with the help of principles based on structured learning.
Methods: Five subjects (boys) aged 6-10 years took part in this study. The interventional programme lasted for 10 months (school year 2016/2017) and it was divided into two blocks (1st and 2nd term).
Each block consisted of 18 lessons taught once a week. Each lesson was 30 minutes long.
The diagnostic assessment was performed with the help of Štochl Scale of swimming skills assessment. Results: From the assessment of the results of the scale with the help of the sign test an overall improvement in all swimming skills has occurred between the measurements 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 1 and 4.
In an intraindividual comparison, two subjects have experienced an improvement in swimming skills between the first and the second measurement. The third subject achieved the biggest improvement between measurements 3 and 4, the 4th subject between measurements 1 and 4.
The last subject has not experienced any statistically significant improvement in gaining swimming skills. Conclusions: According to the above-presented results of this study, we can say that structured learning was a well-chosen technique for teaching swimming to children with ASD.
Thanks to the structuring, the children obtained basic swimming skills and have developed solid grounding for training in various swimming styles. We consider the achieved results very valuable for other swimming education of children with ASD.