Effectiveness of a Train-the-Trainer Model to Teach Water Safety Skills to Children With Autism

Given the high risk of drowning among children with autism, there is a need for disseminating water safety education into mainstream settings. The current study explored the effectiveness of behavioral skills training (BST) in teaching water safety skills to 3 U.S. children with autism, when implemented by community-based swim instructors with no prior experience in applied behavior analysis (ABA). The program used a train-the-trainer model to teach how to: (a) find the nearest point of safety after jumping into water; (b) roll from front to back; and (c) float on back and yell for help. Participants were three children with autism and four community-based swim instructors. The child participants successfully mastered the skills in three to 24 sessions. The skills were maintained after 3 months and generalized to new settings, instructors, and situations. Results suggest that ABA practitioners can enable community-based swim instructors to teach water safety skills to children with autism.