Children with mild intellectual disabilities usually attend an adapted education program with a lower educational standard. In addition to reduced intellectual abilities, they often show reduced motor skills, which are largely due to a blurring of motor sensations, representations and experiences. They have difficulties due to poorer recall of rules, which is a consequence of short attention span and concentration. They also have difficulties with spatial and temporal orientation. All this makes it difficult for them to learn how to swim properly and prevents them from swimming for pleasure in adult life. The NIS PE curriculum provides for a 20-hour swimming course in the second or third year, which can be carried over into the second three years if necessary. The required level of ability and proficiency at the end of the second trimester is to swim 8 meters safely using one of the swimming techniques.
The empirical part of the master thesis investigated the impact of a compulsory 20-hour swimming course on the swimming literacy of pupils in Year 6 of an adapted lower-education standard primary school with an adapted program. Ten pupils with mild intellectual disabilities, five boys and five girls, participated in the study. It was carried out in a school in nature in a swimming pool complex. The swimming skills testing was carried out at the end of the first swimming lesson on the first day of the school. This was done to check the initial swimming proficiency of all pupils. Two pupils, one boy and one girl, were assessed as level 1, which defines a non-swimmer, not adapted to the water, in the initial testing according to the Criteria for the Assessment of Swimming Skills and Swimming Abilities. The final testing was carried out on the last day of the outdoor school. All students progressed by at least one level, indicating the effectiveness of the compulsory swimming course.
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