According to a three-year long study by the Griffith Institute for Educational Research in Australia, swim kids are smarter kids.
The study, which surveyed parents of 7,000 five-year-olds and younger in Australia, New Zealand and the United States, shows the swimming children reach developmental stages faster than other children.
Here’s an excerpt from the study;
As well as achieving physical milestones faster, children also scored significantly better in visual-motor skills such as cutting paper, colouring in and drawing lines and shapes, and many mathematically-related tasks. Their oral expression was also better as well as in the general areas of literacy and numeracy.
Here’s the story link on the USA Swimming website by Mike Gustafson.
From what I’ve seen during the last 13 years covering swimming in Kitsap, I tend to believe the study. All of our elite-level swimmers, Tara Kirk Sell, Dana Kirk, Nathan Adrian, Emily Silver and their siblings all excelled in high school and as undergrads and graduate students. Currently Tara is getting her doctorate in public health from Johns Hopkins.
Coincidence? Ummm, maybe. But I think the fact that so many of our swimmers started at a very young age helped in their development, both socially, physically and mentally.
Besides, is there anything cuter than a 1-2 year old in the water? I think not.
