New Twists to Conventional Equipment.

Teaching aquatic skills beginning swimmers can be a challenging endeavor. When these individuals have physical, medical, cognitive, and/or behavioral disabilities, the task can seem daunting. However, with a little planning and preparation, the experience can be a highly successful, if not miraculous, one for all.

Once the facility is scheduled and necessary lifeguarding coverage secured, instructors need to obtain parents' permission and appropriate medical releases for participants. It is important to learn all that is possible about participating swimmers to plan the program effectively and provide for proper instructor-to-student ratios. Instructors should ensure that goals, objectives, and activities are appropriate for each swimmer's age, ability, and unique needs and interests (Cowart, 1998; Reid & O'Neill, 1989).

Adjusting to water and feeling comfortable in this new environment are often the principal goals for very young, first-time swimmers. As students learn, these goals need to reflect this progress. For example, swimmers may advance to include more advanced strokes and skills, life saving skills, as well as other aquatic skills, such as diving, boating skills, snorkeling, SCUBA, and more. Competitions, such as water polo games and swim meets, may be goals. Therapeutic benefits of exercise, such as increasing range of motion, strength, and endurance, are often major needs that can be realized through the above activities, and especially via specially designed water exercises, such as aquacise and aqua-aerobics (Koury, 1996; Lepore, Gayle, & Stevens, 1998; Reid & O'Neill, 1989; Sanders, 2000; White, 1995).

Whatever the goals, having the right types of equipment available to carry out planned activities can enhance success of the whole program (Stopka & Bowie, 1999). Use of various devices and toys during swimming instruction can serve to focus a person's attention away from being frightened by the water and onto the specific toy or task at hand. Children often bob and dive for toys when they otherwise refuse to get their faces wet. Flotation devices also serve therapeutic purposes by providing for optimal body positioning to facilitate relaxation, as well as inhibiting inappropriate patterns of movement (Stopka, 1998). Interesting, bright colored equipment is helpful in minimizing fear of a new situation, can be quite motivating, and simply put, it is just plain fun--and having fun facilitates learning.

To these ends, the following list of adapted equipment ideas is presented which can be useful in most adapted aquatic programs. Most of the equipment ideas are very inexpensive and can be made from common household items. A helpful catalog for more information on using these equipment ideas, ordering equipment, or learning more about the field of adapted aquatics is also included.

Flotation devices include inner tubes, rafts, inflatable water toys, life vests, water wings, and lifesaving tubes. Flotation devices can be used to stimulate relaxation and improve confidence, thereby providing optimal conditions for learning. Be aware which types of equipment are official lifesaving devices, such as coast guard approved life vests, and which types of equipment are not, as many are merely toys. Toy ring floats are not to be used as lifesaving devices, but can be used as motivational tools with caution in instructional situations, and for fitness, games, and other water fun. Many times, children improve their water skills simply by changing the floats with which they are playing; the next thing they know they are using the duck float for kick board skills; next, they are swimming and surface diving to retrieve their favorite toy! With careful supervision, toys can facilitate miracles of skill learning and love for the water. Toys are safe and wonderful if used as a complement to an appropriate, instructional swimming program; they are not the program, just a joyous complement to one (see figures 1a and 1b, in addition to many of the others that illustrate the various uses of these types of toy floats).

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Floatable toys include ping pong balls, goggles, masks, and fins. Toys that float often help children overcome fear of the water when they see their special toy does not sink, but floats just as they can if they try. Walking after ping pong balls as the child blows them along, perhaps even in a relay race with a peer, promotes such skills as breath control, balance, and endurance. In addition, many children with severe disabilities have walked, hopped, jumped, and leaped for the first time in pursuit of their special toy as it starts to float away from them. Water's buoyancy allows for such achievements, but the special toy is often the catalyst for this small miracle. Certainly, non-swimmers can experience the fun of toys, such as goggles and masks in shallow water with direct supervision of the instructor. Often these toys promote acquisition of more advanced underwater adjustment skills which facilitate learning of actual swimming skills and strokes (Reid & O'Neill, 1989; Stopka & Bowie, 1999) (see figures 1b and 2 on the previous page).

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Hoops, are great for activities such as bobbing, target throwing, musical bob under your hoop games, underwater obstacle course swims, target practice, and relays races. Hoops can be purchased inexpensively in stores as hula-hoops, made from hose material (connecting the ends with a wooden dowel, reinforced with duct tape if needed), or even made from fun noodles (connecting them together by inserting handles of a plastic kite string holder into the noodle's marrow, using actual noodle connectors, or just using duct tape) (see figure 3).

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Sinkable toys (objects that sink), like pennies or small rocks, are helpful aids in teaching swimmers to submerge, swim to the bottom, and ascend again. Toys that open and close, like plastic eggs, can be opened and filled with water allowing them to be either sinkable or unsinkable, as desired (see figure 4 below).

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Kickboards, as an instructors aid, can be made by cutting styrofoam to the desired shape and size. Aside from the more common uses with teaching swimming skills and promoting endurance swimming, kickboards make effective baseball bats for individuals who are blind due to kickboards' larger hitting surface area, rigidity, and weight. They make great bases for baseball, softball, or kickball games as the baseperson stands and holds the kickboard out as a base. Kickboards also make awesome resistance weights by pushing the kickboard down in the water using various hand positions. Companies sell similar devices and give them names such as body blades or body boards. (see figure 5).

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Noodles are versatile foam toys that can be used for virtually any type of water fun. They are great flotation devices, as a noodle or in a circle like a ring float. They can be connected with noodle connectors, duct tape, or even a plastic kite string holder which inserts perfectly and holds the slimmer type of noodles with a hollow center. They can be cut and slipped onto broom stick dowels or PVC pipe dowels for use as a water weights, or dumbbells, or even as kick sticks. With a little imagination, instructors can twist, bend, and shape noodles into many arrangements to meet the needs of a given activity (see figures 6a-6e).

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Plastic gallon bottle floaties can be created by using a 3 foot string or scarf tied to two 2 liter bottles (gallon bottles for adults) allowing a person to lie supine, comfortably, and securely in the water with bottles floating between the arms and chest. Air-filled bottles are effective, versatile, and very inexpensive flotation devices (see figure 7 above).

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Water joggers may be bought from a store or catalog; or, a purchased ski belt may be used for a fraction of the cost. If the participant has good swimming ability, a generic duck float (split back to fit larger sizes) may be used and purchased for about a dollar! Affectionately called the buck a duck, these inflatable ducks, and other split-ring animals, offer fun and warmth from the cold (as the back of the duck head is held to the wearer's chest as support) (Stopka & Bowie, 1999). Remember, the split ring dollar store animal floats make great water-joggers for competent swimmers; those with less than excellent swimming abilities should opt for the safer ski belts, ski vests, and official water-joggers (see figures 8a-8c).

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Kicksticks, in addition to versatile Fun noodles, can be alternative types of floatation devices easily made with a broom handle, or similar sized PVC pipe, with a two liter soda bottle securely fastened (with epoxy, waterproof glue, or duct tape) to each end. This provides an excellent, durable kick stick, virtually free of charge, for water aerobics, swim lessons, cooperative play and more (see figures 9a-9d).

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Special tricks. When patients with heparin locks are able to go swimming, the donning of two surgeon's operating gloves and tape gives adequate protection and comfort to the wearer without upsetting the heparin lock (often worn by patients needing frequent administration of intravenous medications, as the heparin serves to preclude clotting at the local injection site, e.g., in chemotherapy). Swim fins can be adapted for the swimmer with a limb amputation to prevent listing to one side, which often occurs with one shorter leg. Simply use water proof tape to secure an extra mold of the stump onto a swim fin, then the fin will fit snugly onto the stump, and the person can swim with stability, ease, and comfort (see figures 10a and 10b).

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Selected References

Cowart, J. (1998). Teaching Swim Skills to the Hard to Reach Student, PALAESTRA, 14:1, 32-38.

Koury, J. M. (1996). Aquatic Therapy Programming. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Lepore, M., Gayle, G.W., & Stevens, S. (1998). Adapted Aquatics Programming: A Professional Guide. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Reid, G., & O'Neill K. (1989). Adapted Aquatics: Promoting Aquatic Opportunities for All. Canadian Red Cross Society.

Sanders, M.E. (2000). Land training + water training = best results. ACSM's Health & Fitness Journal, 4: 2, 34.

Stopka, C. (1998). Applied Special Physical Education: A Manual for the Educator (3rd ed.). Edina, MN: Burgess Publishing.

Stopka, C., & Bowie, L. (1999). Adapted Equipment to Facilitate Inclusionary Teaching. Edina, MN: Burgess Publishing.

White, M. (1995). Water Exercise. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

The following catalog may be of assistance for further information in ordering equipment related to the field of adapted aquatics--Aquatics International Directory. The latest editions, including the 2000 edition, list web sites, manufacturers, distributors, features, products, and a calendar of events. Visit www.aquaticsintl.com.

Christine Stopka, PhD, ATC/L, CSCS is an associate professor in the Department of Exercise and Sport Sciences at the University of Florida. She is the Director of the Special Physical Education Program and Exercise Therapy Lab there. She is a Red Cross Instructor-Trainer of Adapted Aquatics and has been teaching programs in adapted aquatics and adapted physical activity since 1975.