Some specialised swim programmes are helping neurodiverse children stay safe in the water, as experts warn they face a significantly higher drowning risk compared to their peers.
At Huia Pool in Lower Hutt, swim instructor Ashlee Cooper teaches a one-on-one class accessible for neurodiverse children, with student Roc.
Hutt City Council swim schools staff have completed a specialist certification by Australian-based Autism Swim to make classes more inclusive.
"We can use visual aids that we wouldn't normally use in our classes and we can also make sure that we can really do what the child wants to do," Cooper said.
"For these kids, we really want them to learn how to be safe around the water," Cooper said.
Research from Columbia University found that children on the autism spectrum were up to 160 times more likely to drown than their peers.
Autism Swim general manager Antoinette Spear said there were several factors as to why the risk was so high.
"One of them being that children on the autism spectrum, over 50% of them have a propensity to wander towards bodies of water.
And that wandering behaviour is usually associated with either sensory seeking or sensory avoiding, "she said.
For Roc's mother Dani Blizzard, she had noticed a huge difference since he started taking classes.
"He's gone from just playing in the water to being able to confidently swim to the end of the pool and just so heartwarming to see when he gets to the end of the lap, he like claps and taps the side of the pool."
"We're really proud of his success."
New Zealand research gaps
Beki Barker from Waikato University's Applied Verbal Behaviour Lab has been researching water safety for neurodiverse children and said the risks are higher in New Zealand than people realise.
"Even this year already, there have been two cases that have been reported in the media, and it's a very prevalent problem, but yet not a lot of work happening in this space at the moment."
In July, a boy with Autism was rescued from mangroves in Auckland after escaping from a property.
A former swim instructor, Barker said a family who approached her with a "very similar scenario," helping inspire her research.
Figures provided to 1News by Water Safety New Zealand show that there have been 12 known drownings of neurodiverse children 14 and under since the year 2000.
This was less than 2% of total recorded child drownings, but Water Safety New Zealand urged caution over these numbers because the data doesn't always include someone's conditions.
"It’s also likely that the further back in time we go that there was under reporting and recognition of neurodivergent conditions," it said.
Accessibility problem
Barker said the key thing she hears from families across the country is that there are a complete lack of accessible water safety options for their children.
"Whether it be the really high cost of one-on-one lessons for children that can't access group lessons [...] of they do manage to pay for those classes, the instructors often aren't specialized in providing the support required to some of these children."
Autism New Zealand chief executive Dane Dougan said it's really important to make swim lessons more inclusive, but noted that pool environments can be overwhelming.
"It's really, really hard for our families to create water safety within our community when the children or the kids find it really difficult to go to environments, that are really noisy and smells can be quite intense and there's lots of children around," he said.
"And because of that, and because of that inclination to be attracted to water and create a far [more] unsafe environment."
University of Waikato Senior Lecturer in Psychology Dr. Amarie Carnett said many parents find accessing swim support for their kids too risky.
"So I think that's an important thing to kind of consider when we're supporting learners, is first we want the environment to be safe for them, and supportive of their needs, and so then we have less barriers happening in terms of how to access swim schools."
Finding solutions
Barker's research focused on parent coaching to support water safety skills, and had already had success with a child who had previously escaped to water.
"The mum came to me because she was desperate, she didn't know what to do, they couldn't get this child into traditional swimming lessons, because it just wasn't any available in our area.
"We taught a simple 'stop, check, go' to prevent the child from entering the water without seeking supervision and approval from the parent first, and it worked," she said.
Barker and Carnett were now looking to speak to more families as part of their research at the Applied Verbal Behaviour Lab.
"We're just really excited to be able to have this opportunity to do something that might be impactful," Carnett said.
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