Effects of teaching methods on swimming skill acquisition in children with and without developmental coordination disorder

[Truncated] Swimming is an activity recommended for children with movement difficulties. It comprises a variety of complex movements requiring coordination between multiple body segments. Because of this, children with movement problems such as developmental coordination disorder (DCD) typically find it hard to acquire these complex movements. To date, no research has specifically examined the rate of learning in children with DCD relative to typically developing children.Given that swimming is recommended for children with DCD, it was proposed to examine the process through which children with DCD acquire swimming skills. This study was designed to focus on the acquisition of freestyle and backstroke in children with DCD in comparison to typically developing children. In addition, the second part of the study attempted to determine the most effective swimming teaching methods for children with DCD. Peens and colleagues (2008) found that children with DCD who were treated by means of an individualistic approach, where the therapists use methods combining the use of visual, auditory and tactile systems, achieved the biggest improvement in their motor skills. In accordance with this finding, this study attempted to compare the delivery of a verbal and visual against verbal, visual and tactile instructional methods of 10 x 30 minutes weekly swimming program. The results were analysed with a view to identifying the most appropriate pedagogical strategies for addressing the movement challenges faced by children with DCD. Thirty-one boys participated in a 10 week swimming program divided into three groups. Group 1 consisted of 8 children (mean age 7.5 ± 1.1 years) diagnosed with DCD. The change in their swimming performance following traditional swimming instruction (i.e. verbal and visual) was compared to 14 children (mean age 7.1 ± 1.3 years) in Group 2 without any movement difficulties.