Adding Capital to Young Australians Early Years Swimming

At Eltham Swimming School, we have been involved in a 4 year study by Griffith University, into other benefits of learning to swim for young children, besides the obvious safety and physical benefits.

The study aimed to undertake an examination of the possible benefits that may accrue for under-5s who participate in swimming lessons & to investigate whether or not young children gain more than just swimming skills if they participate in early-years swimming. The Results are in!

“The two stages – survey and child testing – have shown that there are considerable differences between the “normal” population (as a statistical measure) and children who participate in early-years swimming across a range of skills. These differences are related not only to physical development – as would be expected from an industry that focuses on gross motor skills – but also in areas of language and cognition. It may be argued that this is hardly surprising…that the children of families from middle to upper socio-economic families can afford access – so that our findings are a reflection of the social strata rather than the possibilities of swimming to add capital to young children. However, our data from the child assessments have shown that there are significant differences between the swimming cohort and the normal population, regardless of socio-economic background”.