If You Would Only Wear A Swim Cap

Courtesy of Gail Morton

I watch him dive into the pool and glide along in the water propelled by whatever stroke he is doing for warm-ups. He moves really fast now, in fact so fast that he actually made state qualifying times with his relay team for fourteen and under swimmers, short course. I watch from afar as he steps up onto the block, and I take in the whole event at a glance or two with a sigh of comfort. Swim meets weren’t always this easy for my son, who was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at the age of three.

There was a time when these incredibly loud, busy, confusing, and sometimes stressful events would just be too much for him. Most of the meets are indoors, so there is nowhere to escape the sensory assault except by exiting the venue, which can result in missing your event. Warm-ups are accompanied by very loud music echoing off the walls. Most teams have their own cheer, and they shout it all together. You can never tell what they are saying, but it’s in unison, and it’s forceful. There is usually a food venue, and the aroma of pizza or coffee will compete with the smell of chlorine—thank gosh salt water pools are slowly taking over! There are parents and swimmers and coaches and officials everywhere. Towels, water bottles, and swim bags litter the pool area while the audience cheers on the swimmers from their teams. Buzzers and whistles are constantly blaring, communicating to the swimmers when to start the race and when to get out of the pool after the race. Officials watch closely to make sure each competitor performs all the techniques of each race perfectly. Most events have more than one heat, and the swimmers must keep up with their event, heat, and lane numbers. There is even this thing called a swim cap that you are supposed to wear—it tightly clings to your skull, like some torturous shrink wrap. Needless to say, all of this can be overwhelming for a child with the sensitivities of autism.

These days, he marches over to his lane and confidently dives in, and my eyes well up every time as I think to myself, “He can do all of this on his own now.” These thoughts are frequently interrupted by smiles from his teammates and swim team parents. “His time really improved on that race,” they’ll say. Other times, a person I just met from another team will remark, “Was that your son? He’s a natural.” Of course this makes me laugh—if they only knew that this is the first time he was ever willing to endure a swim cap.

His very first swim lesson scared him right out of the water. Parents were asked to wait away from the pool deck and outside the gate while instruction was going on. While the other parents cheered on their little ones, I stood on my tip toes, peering nervously over the gate for a glimpse of how my son was handling himself. All the other students seemed to be interested and engaged, each excited to take their turn with the instructor, but our kid wouldn’t go in. He was left sitting on the ledge with his feet dangling in the pool, only barely reaching the water. We let this go on for about a week, hoping he would get comfortable, and he did—sort of. The ledge was safe, and he was perfectly happy to observe, but he refused to go in the water. We spent the rest of the summer with him in my arms and eventually on my back lightly clenching my neck and kicking as I did a version of the breast stroke, hoping to reignite the love of the water that he had once had. We eventually made it back to the place where we started, but only after a few years in different pools with a few different instructors. We learned how to remove him from an environment that might potentially thwart our efforts due to sensory overloads, all the while maintaining the idea of returning, little-by-little, in order to get him used to such an environment. We never forced him to do anything he did not want to; it was always on his terms. We did come up with a few rules together, though. You have to learn to swim well. It’s a good idea to wear goggles. No, you don’t have to wear a swim cap.

Why did we put so much effort into this one area of life? Shortly after his diagnosis, I had read that children with autism are very likely to drown. In fact, it is one of the leading causes of death. Swimming may have entered our lives as a basic safety skill, but it became so much more than that. He can now successfully handle an environment full of abrasive sensory stimulation and concentrate on swimming a great race. We used to only attend one day of a three-day meet, now he can do all of them. We used to leave right away after his last race of the day, now we can stay to cheer on other team members or help with the clean up. We used to sit away from his teammates, now he can sit with them. We used to go outside to decompress for a moment or two, now he can be there the whole time. We used to prep him for when his next race was getting close, now he goes on his own. No one knows the difficulties he conquered to be the competitive swimmer he is today. The folks who bent the rules a bit, allowing me to walk with him on deck to get him to where he needed to be, will never know how much their kindness meant to him. The same goes for the people who let us take the occasional elevator ride, something that relaxes him, or the ones who helped him get back to his parents after his heat. Not to mention the coaches that always gave him encouragement, made him comfortable, and pushed him to do his best. And then there was the official whose off-handed comment helped my son conquer one of his last obstacles. “You know,” he said, “you would have a faster time if you would only wear a swim cap.”

Gail Morton is a Research Services Librarian at Mercer University.  She holds an MLIS from the University of South Carolina – Columbia and has worked in academic libraries for twenty years. Her experiences as mother to a son who has been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder inspired her to co-author Why Johnny Doesn’t Flap: NT is OK. This satirical picture book turns the tables on common depictions of neurological difference by drolly revealing how people who are not on the autistic spectrum are perceived by those who are.