Children need to learn to swim for academic and social milestones, rather than just fitness, research suggests

With parents and carers facing difficult financial decisions due to cost-of-living crises globally, experts are calling for greater subsidies for swimming lessons for children

Image by contributor Dzmitry Kliapitski for Alamy.

With family budgets stretched ever-tighter, swimming lessons can be one of the first expenses to be cut back – but with research showing swimming helps children not just physically but developmentally, researchers are calling for greater government support.

A major four-year study spanning nearly 7,000 survey respondents and 177 individually tested children suggests that children who learn to swim early don’t just become safer in the water and fitter, but they become more academically successful and more sociable than their peers.

This study has been unpacked, explored and expanded upon by researcher Robyn Jorgensen, Emeritus Professor at the University of Canberra, Australia, in her new book, Why Young Children Should Learn to Swim.

Testing an industry hunch

The project began with a conversation between researcher Professor Jorgensen and Laurie Lawrence, an Olympic swim coach inducted into both the Australian and US Swimming Halls of Fame. Lawrence felt that children who learned to swim early were generally more ‘school-ready’.

“There was no formal evidence to support this observation, but it was one that Laurie felt he and many others in the swim industry observed,” Jorgensen explains.

Jorgensen and colleagues decided to verify this ‘industry hunch’ through rigorous academic investigation using internationally recognised testing tools: the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales and Woodcock-Johnson III assessments, normed against national census data.

The results surprised even Jorgensen, who said: “My early observations of the young learners piqued my interest while retaining some sense of scepticism about what could be achieved. I am not from a swimming background, so had no vested interest in the ‘proving’ or otherwise of Laurie’s hunch. My only interest in swimming was as a grandparent and around water safety for my children and grandchildren, and as a recreational activity.”

On measures of literacy, numeracy and following instructions, the study found that young children before the age of 5 who participated in swimming, regardless of socio-economic background, could be 5-18 months ahead of milestones in literacy, numeracy, and being able to follow instruction – at a much better rate than general children population of the same age.

Jorgensen is keen to impress this does not mean young children who have been learning to swim are innately ‘smarter’, instead, she argues swimming lessons build transferable skills and dispositions. For example, a child counting kicks from one to ten with an instructor, for instance, absorbs number sequencing and one-to-one correspondence – skills with direct value in a classroom.

While many parents enrol children in swimming for safety reasons, Jorgensen’s detailed study suggests participants gain measurable advantages in cognitive development, language skills and emotional regulation.

“It is reasonable to claim that swimming prepares children for the schooling years, particularly the early years and the transition into schooling,” Jorgensen explains.

The price of entry

Yet access to this advantage is sharply unequal. Most swim schools operate as commercial businesses, and cost is consistently identified as the single biggest barrier to participation.

According to Jorgensen’s analysis, the biggest equity barrier is faced in the U.S. and China, where only very affluent families can afford regular swimming lessons.

After this, Singapore, Australia, Brazil and South Africa also face notable geographic and economic barriers to swimming.

One respondent from Zimbabwe summed up the difficulty, saying: “So swimming is still seen in Africa in general as elite. But basically, if you are a working-level person well below average, swimming lessons will not be a priority; what will be a priority is feeding your family.”

Geography also compounds the problem. In Australia, families on remote farming properties can face journeys of hundreds of kilometres to reach the nearest pool. This creates what the study calls ‘a double whammy’ – children from low-income and rural communities are simultaneously the least likely to access lessons and the most at risk of drowning.

With cost-of-living crises around the world, Jorgensen’s call-to-action is for greater systemic support to allow equitable access.

A call for subsidy

Jorgensen argues governments have both a moral and financial incentive to intervene.

The study suggests that where governments worldwide already spend billions trying to close attainment gaps in schools.

“What this study has shown is that even when socio-economic backgrounds are accounted for, children who participate in quality lessons achieve better than the general population. It would make sense for the government to consider investing in providing or subsidising early years swimming for families who would otherwise be excluded from participation in early years swimming lessons,” Jorgensen explains.

“Investing in quality swimming lessons would make a politically wise move. The cost of lessons can be quite high, but if policies were created to offer subsidies for parents or to create swim programs for disadvantaged families, there is considerable potential for adding capital to these cohorts of learners,” she explains.