In January 2007, Karen’s goal was to provided extended programming for students with special needs of the Sioux City Community School District. She received a grant from the Kind World Foundation of the Siouxland Community Foundation to pilot Big Splash, a program that enhances the quality of the special need students’ physical education experience by providing instructional swimming and aquatic therapy two days per week during the school year.
Aside from the wellness benefits of Big Splash that are evident in the physical education assessments, special education teachers whose students participate in Big Splash estimate that classroom productivity would double if students had the opportunity to swim at the beginning of every day. As Dr. Linda Madison, Associate Superintendent of the Sioux City Community School District wrote, “Students who have trouble walking are able to move freely in the water. Children who have difficulties with speaking skills, more specifically children with autism, are stimulated by the medium of water and their experiences at Big Splash and they begin to talk.”
The Big Splash program serves all levels of special needs classrooms from preschool through Year 13 students, and the program has served:
- Autism (39.9%)
- Mental disabilities (42.2%)
- Down syndrome (7.2%)
- Cerebral palsy (1.4%)
- Behavioral disorders (5.2%)
- Deafness & blindness (4.1%)
Following the inception of the Big Splash program, for the first time in 20+ years, four Sioux City Community School District students participated in Special Olympics swimming in 2007. Since that time, between 11 and 16 swimmers have competed in the Special Olympics every year, earning a total of 153 medals and 18 ribbons in both individual events and relays.
Mission Statement
Big Splash works with special needs students through the medium of adaptive instructional swimming and aqua therapy in a positive supportive environment. Big Splash consulting trains classroom Special Education teachers and associates/para-educators the Big Splash approach to adaptive instructional swim and aqua therapy for their students. Big Splash promotes wellness, recreation, and personal achievement for students with special needs.
Program Goals
- Maintain and expand services to students with special needs
- Teach lifetime skill
- Develop self-confidence and builds self-esteem
- Create environment for free movement in water for the mobility impaired
- Create individualized adapted instructional swimming or aquatic therapy for each students’ emotional and development needs
- Improve students’ safety in and around water
- Play a key role in overall wellness and fitness of participants
- Enhance overall learning environment for participants
1. Cognitive skills
2. Language skills
3. Emotional and psychological health
4. Social skills
5. Sensory awareness
6. Controlled behavioral disorders - Continue to support Special Olympics aquatics participation
The Big Splash program teaches a lifetime activity as well as addresses wellness through physical activity for children/young adults with special needs. In general, the populations represented struggle with obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes; yet as a result of regular swimming these students have experienced a dramatic improvement in their overall health. As well, the students with autism and behavioral disorders have greatly improved their classroom participation as a direct result of their swimming two days per week. The participating classroom teachers have requested, throughout the years, that if their students could swim at the beginning of every day, they believe that their overall productivity would double in their academic performance!
Big Splash Inc. Consulting, makes waves with this unique instructional swimming program and aquatic therapy for students with disabilities. The purpose of Big Splash Consulting, conducted by aquatic specialist with forty+ years experience, instructs and equips the classroom teachers, para-educators, physical education teachers, and volunteers to conduct adapted instructional swimming and aquatic therapy for individuals with disabilities preschool to young adults. The course is designed to enhance the quality of the special needs students’ overall learning experience by providing beginning through advanced swimming instruction and aquatic therapy.
School districts can take bold steps alongside Big Splash Inc. by implementing this outstanding program that makes lifetime of differences for students with disabilities.