Are you ready to learn more about swimming lessons for swimmers who have a visual impairment? Swimming is an essential skill for children, and it’s no different for those with special needs, including visual impairments.

Many parents ask whether it is possible to teach a child who is blind to swim. Our answer is absolutely yes! Individuals who are blind, have low vision or who have a visual impairment can be successful swimmers, when paired with an adaptive swim instructor who understands their needs.

It can be a struggle to find a swim instructor who has the skills to modify their teaching approach for visual challenges. Our adaptive swim lessons focus on fostering independence while achieving swim skill benchmarks and ensuring safety. We understand that every swimmer is unique, and overcoming learn-to-swim obstacles requires a tailored approach. By applying the Swim Whisperers® methodology, we can identify the correct strategies to help swimmers overcome their challenges.

In our Adaptive Swim Whisperers® program, we have identified three of the most common roadblocks that swimmers who are visually impaired encounter. These roadblocks are ‘Interpreting Touch’, ‘Having Body Control’ and ‘Engagement and Interaction’.

In this blog, we’ll guide you through these roadblocks and share tips on how to teach individuals with a visual impairment to swim.

Identifying the Roadblock: Interpreting Touch

Imagine navigating the water without the gift of sight. For swimmers with a visual impairment, touch becomes a crucial sense for understanding their surroundings. This is because, when you are unable to see, your other senses become even more heightened. Using their sense of touch helps individuals who are blind or experience low vision to identify boundaries and locate the pool’s edge for safety. However, unexpected touch can be startling, triggering a fight-or-flight response. Understanding how touch is interpreted by the swimmer is vital to helping them have an enjoyable experience in the water.

  • Tip
    To ease this roadblock, pair touch with verbal cues. Preparing the swimmer for contact helps them feel more at ease, especially if they have visual impairments and may be startled by sudden touch.

Identifying the Roadblock: Having Body Control

Swimmers with visual impairments often struggle with body control in the water, which causes anxiety. The buoyancy of water reduces gravity, making it challenging to understand one’s position in space. When a swimmer has more control over their body, they tend to have less fear and are able to practice swim skills such as the rollover. This involves moving from prone (on belly) to supine (on back) and helps swimmers with safety and independence. Help your swimmer with vision challenges, practice buoyancy control and gain more feedback from proprioception (input into their muscles and joints). When they feel more in control, their fear diminishes, and they can confidently practice floating and moving in various positions.

  • Tip
    Talk with your swimmer about the buoyancy of the water and how this might make them feel and let them know about any hands-on assistance that you may provide to help them. Small ankle weights or cotton socks also give more feedback to where their body is in space and can help with this activity.

Identifying the Roadblock: Engagement and Interaction

It might seem obvious, but building a strong connection with your swimmer is essential, particularly when they can’t see you. Swimmers with a visual impairment rely heavily on your voice and demeanor to trust and connect with you. Following your swimmers’ lead works really well with this population. For example, one of our swimmers loved spinning and floating on their back and had a hard time moving in a forward direction. By following their lead and starting where they were, we were able to turn the spinning motion into a swim skill (‘spinning and take side’). From there we worked on spinning, lay back and rollover.

  • Tip
    Modify activities to foster independence in swimming. Don’t forget to adjust your voice tone—softer and more calming when the swimmer is overstimulated and more arrhythmic and higher pitch for alerting when engagement is needed.

Swim Whisperers® Strategies to Help Swimmers with a Visual Impairment

By combining these strategies with the areas of focus learned in our Adaptive Swim Whisperers® certification program, you can take action, make informed decisions on techniques, and adapt to various situations.

In this video, we use the Swim Whisperers® methodology to help one of our swimmers with a visual impairment achieve independence in the water.

Here are some adaptation tips for swimmers with visual impairments:

  • Hammerhead Swim Caps
    Consider using swim caps with gel pads to protect your swimmer’s head from accidentally hitting the pool’s edge.
  • Correcting Asymmetry
    If your swimmer struggles with asymmetry, try using a flipper on the weaker side to help them maintain a straight line while swimming laps.
  • Safety by Sound
    Use a bell or have a parent tap the poolside or call the child’s name as they approach it. This practice can help them learn to hold on and stay close to the pool’s edge.
  • Stroke Counting
    For more advanced swimmers, count the number of strokes it takes to reach the pool’s edge and remind them when it’s time to take a break.
  • Balancing Act
    To improve balance, have your swimmer straddle a noodle with it positioned in the middle of their body. This provides feedback on their center and allows them to practice powerful arm strokes while maintaining balance.

Remember, with patience, understanding, and the right strategies, children who are blind, have low vision or a visual impairment can experience the joy and benefits of swimming, just like any other child.

Looking for Aquatic Therapist Training?

We can give you the tools you need to help special needs clients achieve therapy goals and improve their independence in the water.

Learn new treatment and handling techniques, understand how to integrate reflexes and overcome roadblocks to help your pediatric clients achieve their therapy goals. We have 4 in-depth online courses to choose from.

Our online training courses will help you strengthen your aquatic therapy skills and allow you to earn CEU’s. Our on-demand platform makes learning flexible to fit into your schedule.

Dive into Our Specialized Pediatric Aquatic Therapy Program!

The unique program that Swim Angelfish offers is created by an OT/PT team with over 60 years combined experience. We have experienced Recreation, Occupational, and Physical therapists who are specifically trained in pediatric aquatic therapy. We use a fun, innovative and multi-sensory approach using the therapeutic properties of the water to reach your specific therapy goals.

We can help improve self-regulation, motor coordination, strength, balance, endurance, and more. There are several options for therapy sessions depending on your needs, including private, semi-private, and small group sessions.

Ailene Tisser, MA, PT, Founder

Ailene is a pediatric Physical Therapist with more than 25 years of experience treating a variety of diagnoses, both in and out of the water. She is NDT (Neuro-Developmental Treatment) trained in pediatrics and is trained in DIR/Floortime. She is currently certified as an Autism Specialist by IBCCES. Ailene brings all of her Physical Therapy expertise into the water, where she helps children of all abilities feel safe, confident, and independent. She combines her passion and skill for working with children with special needs with the therapeutic properties of the water to achieve amazing results. She enjoys sharing her knowledge and experience by educating other Aquatic Professionals so that they can also make a significant impact on the lives of swimmers with special needs.

Cindy Freedman, MOTR, Founder

Cindy is a recreational therapist and an Occupational therapist. After working for ten years as a recreational therapist in a variety of settings, she pursued a Master’s degree in OT. Her career as an OT includes specialty training in sensory integration, reflex repatterning, and aquatics. She is currently certified as an Autism Specialist by IBCCES. As a swimmer and national champion diver, Her love of the water combined with her education and work experience created them an opportunity for Swim Angelfish to become a reality! “Our mission is to create an aquatic community of trained instructors so that together we can decrease the alarming statistic of drowning being the leading cause of death for children with special needs.”