*Making a swimmer go under successfully*

This swimmer has anxiety about submerging and the instructor created a ritual and routine that gave him success with quick submerging. After traditional attempts at submerging did not work, he realized that if he did the under towards the end of the lesson his swimmer was more cooperative. This is likely because of the effects of the viscosity and hydrostatic pressure of the water helped regulate him to attempt new things. Brendan has limited language and is on the autism spectrum. The instructor uses the dumbells to give him something to push on or gives him stability in order to move his face into the water. He also uses robotic speech with cadence and tries to extend the time his swimmer keeps face in by saying a long time under. The block allows the opportunity for him to break the surface tension which he likes and then to hopefully submerge deeper without discomfort.

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Brendan Under