Teaching your ASD child to swim...how??

[FauxFox]

Has anyone got any tips? DS is 6 and water confident and can swim, very slowly, with a woggle under his armpits or armbands but I need to get him swimming without floats. He hates being on his back in the water and is too excited/tense to float. Help!!

I took my son to swimming lessons, he's fine with that kind of thing though and adores the water so it wasn't any harder than my other children. I wouldn't have dreamed of trying to teach them on my own swimming lessons are a godsend. ;)

Forgot to say he doesn't need to go on his back or float really as long as he can move along without sinking the rest will come. :)

What worked for my ds (dcd ?asd) was to have swimming lessons twice a week. It's taken a while, but has come :) (he was 8 when he started, is now 9 1/2)

One I have heard of from another mum (also for an older child), where her ds could swim but had no confidence unless he had his woggle, was that every week when they went swimming, she cut and inch or two off the end of his woggle. Eventually it grew so small he decided he didnt need it any more.

Cutting the woggle off is a brilliant idea. We used armbands with Dd1 and gradually let the air out until they were flat.

Dd3 had one of the jacket things with removeable floats so basically the same process.

Dd3 has been blessed with brilliant swimming teachers for the last 3 years. She is an excellent swimmer but her hypermobility makes her style somewhat unusual. Her current teacher is fab and adapts her teaching to Dd3's needs really well.

I also know a swimming teacher who specialises in teaching kids with Sn's, you could ask at your local pool.

I wouldn't make him go on his back if he doesn't like it at the moment, he obviously doesn't feel safe and he won't float if he isn't relaxed.

Good luck.

DS had remedial lessons through school which pointed us in the direction of a sympathetic swim school. He still goes!
There's no way he'd have been taught by me but would happily listen to a stranger.

DS has had 1:1 swimming lessons for over 6 months now (he is 11) - and he's almost learnt to swim.

So, it's long, slow and hard.

He wouldn't have ever learnt in group lessons.

Thanks all - love the idea of cutting the woggle down! Genius! I think I will make it my NY resolution to go swimming regularly and see how we go. I'm really bad at going every week as I hate going in myself but i'm not sure he'd manage a 1:1 with a stranger unless they had ABA skills!

Ds1 (dyspraxic) has come on leaps and bounds with 1:1 swimming lessons. Ds2 ( severely autistic) will float with armbands and vaguely move his arms and legs, but is really not interested in moving forward and tends to swim 'vertically'. Have no idea how to get him actually moving!

We used one of those float belts with DS and took the floats off gradually. We found that to be much better than arm bands as the child actually has to work their arms and legs to stay fully afloat and allows free arm movement whereas woggle can restrict arm moevement.
DS learned to swim 'doggy paddle' using these floats at age 5. I then found a lovely swimming instructor (who was also doing her teacher training) who taught DS 1-1 for a while. Difficulty was DS wouldn't put his face in the water so she wasn't able to teach him proper strokes. Gave up with the lessons for a while and just took DS to pool ourselves whilst practising getting him to put his face in water and blow bubbles. When we felt he was ready, we enrolled him at local pool in group of 5 children where instructor was in water with children (no way DS would have paid attention if intructor had stood on the side!). He progressed well with this and was encouraged by gaining badges.
He is now a stylish swimmer with all strokes and can plough up and down the pool effortlessly.
Would recommend asking around local pools for instructor with SN experience or at local SN school to see if they have anyone qualified as swimming instructor who might give private lessons.

I had two that loved water, and one that didn't. We too resorted to one to one. I live near the broads so felt that swimming is a particularly important skill.
The one to one was brilliant, and he's no great swimmer, but he can do it. We also book a private pool to practise. We book for a term, we are the only people in the pool, so you don't get all the problems with noise distortion etc that tend to put those with ASDs off. We book a half hour session, once a week, there's a fifteen minute changeover time, so you get 30 minutes in the pool, undisturbed and because we book termly, it's always same day, same time.