For kids with autism, swim classes can be lifesaving

In an airy indoor pool with fish cutouts on the walls, a group of small children bobbed, floated and tentatively flutter-kicked. It was what it looked like, a starter swimming class.

- Associated Press

But here, instructors worked one-on-one or even two to a child. Some held cards to help kids communicate with teachers by pointing instead of speaking. No one blew whistles. All the students in the class at the Small Fish Big Fish swim school had autism, a developmental disorder linked to a higher-than-average danger of drowning.

It has long worried autism experts and parents, but recent data make the stakes starkly clear. In Florida, a state where water abounds from beaches to backyards, over 100 children who had autism or were being evaluated for it have drowned since the start of 2021, according to the Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County. The numbers highlight an oft-overlooked dilemma: Autism makes swimming instruction all the more necessary but, often, all the more difficult to get. "It's life-changing for kids with autism,” said Lovely Chrisostome, who was terrified this winter when her 6-year-old son slipped out of the family’s home and wandered through their lake-dotted neighbourhood. She'd once tried enrolling him in swim classes at a public pool, but he had refused to go in. But her son was in the pool at the autism-specific class at Small Fish Big Fish.