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Can Swim School Make Your Kid Smarter?

Nov 2, 2010  - Craig Lord

Can learning to swim make your kids smarter? That's the question being posed by Queensland researchers at Griffith University in Australia.

A research project is surveying more than 10,000 youngsters up to five years of age to find out if swimming promotes physical, social, intellectual and language development, AAP reports today.

Professor Robyn Jorgensen told the agency that anecdotal evidence found swimmers tended to be more confident than same-age, non-swimming peers. The study, in its second year, is measuring the development of youngsters learning to swim against international norms in child development.

"The preliminary data is coming back quite positive," she told AAP. "Children in swimming schools appear to be more advanced in terms of their development."

The project, ordered by learn-to-swim schools, also involves monitoring young swimmers at 60 swim schools across Australia.

"When they're working [the swim schools] with young kids, they've noticed the ones who have been in swimming longer are more advanced," she said. Ms Jorgensen said this study was the largest of its kind in 30 years. The study will be run for four years.