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Learning how to swim can be a daunting proposition for a child. For those children with disabilities, the challenge of moving through water increases exponentially. One primary reason for this: Traditional swim-lesson programs often turn away these children because their staff lacks the knowledge or the necessary equipment.

Gianna Petrella, an undergraduate student in the Communication Sciences and Disorders program in OHIO’s College of Health Sciences and Professions, is looking to change that.

Petrella, who worked with children and adults with disabilities for five years in her native state of Pennsylvania, started a program in Athens called "Safe Swimming for All," targeted to children with disabilities. Launched in partnership with and the (AF-CADRE), the program made its debut in mid-January.

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The program’s origins

Petrella’s program had its beginnings while she was still on her high school swim team. She first began offering swim lessons through her swim club. Later, she also offered privately contracted lessons. But none of these lessons were focused to people with disabilities. As she investigated further, she found that children with disabilities were being underserved by most swim programs, in her own community and in swim programs everywhere.

“I realized that children with disabilities were not being given the same chance to participate in their community swim lessons — which their typically developing peers were able to be a part of,” Petrella said.

She then took the opportunity to volunteer, along with her swim team peers, at La Roche College in Pennsylvania for a swim program serving children with multiple disabilities.

“This was a recreational leisure program that gave the children a chance to be in the water,” she said. “It was a wonderful program, but there were no goals for the children to meet. It was more of a group event, not a learn-to-swim class.”

Petrella wanted to develop a swim program based on a philosophy that all children — regardless of abilities — can learn to swim. She further researched the topic, wrote a curriculum, and then presented that curriculum in a proposal to the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children, which accepted and implemented it. She, along with her team of instructors — which she recruited and trained — began implementing and teaching her new "Safe Swimming for All" curriculum.

The result? “The swimmers demonstrated amazing success!” Petrella said. “A young boy who had never entered the pool left our five-week program with emerging survival swimming skills. Another