Optimisation Model for Teaching Swimming Strokes to 6–7-Year-Old Children with Residual Primitive Reflexes. Summary of the Doctoral Thesis

Abstract

Teaching swimming strokes is a key part of many aquatic curriculum programmes. It is important that children learn these new skills well in order to prevent accidents in the water. A factor that can affect a child's teaching and his ability to successfully learn swimming strokes is the residual primitive reflexes. Studies suggest that primitive reflexes can remain active as residual reflexes in approximately 90 % of healthy preschool children and over 50 % of elementary school-age children. As a result of residual primitive reflexes, head and body movements affect limb muscle tone, balance and movement coordination. Scientists note that residual primitive reflexes affect the child's cognitive and motor abilities, emotional and social status, and self-regulation skills. The concept of teaching swimming to children with residual primitive reflexes is particularly important because swimming skills are taught in an aquatic environment under the influence of sensory and mechanical postural/balance disturbances. If primitive reflexes are retained, they may reduce children's ability to process sensory/proprioceptive information effectively, resulting in an increased cognitive load. Retained primitive reflexes become obstacles/restrictions or even prevent voluntary movements or specific motor/movement abilities. In this context, controlled voluntary movement is hampered by involuntary motor responses and preserved muscle tone due to the activity of primitive reflexes. As a result, a child with preserved primitive reflexes tends/needs to expend more energy and cognitive effort during self-regulation/learning, and this can be considered as a factor/cause of difficulties in learning to swim. Because the brain has limited information processing capacity, it is important to seek strategies that prevent difficulties which children with residual primitive reflexes might encounter during swimming learning. The aim of this study was to create and apply optimisation model for teaching swimming strokes to 6–7-year-old children with residual primitive reflexes, as well as to develop practical recommendations for teaching swimming to children with residual primitive reflexes at the age of 6–7. As part of the Doctoral Thesis: 1) for the first time in Latvia, teaching swimming to 6–7-year-old children with residual primitive reflexes is being seriously studied; 2) the created optimisation model for teaching swimming strokes for 6–7-year-old children with residual primitive reflexes is based on the theories of dynamic systems and dual tasks of children's ontogenetic sensorimotor development; 3) based on the assessment of the swimming skills acquisition, the length of the swimming distance and the assessment of the child's functional state, the influence of the optimisation model of teaching swimming on the back stroke and front crawl in the stage of learning swimming skills for children with residual primitive reflexes at the age of 6–7 years has been determined; 4) the effect of the learning optimization model has been compared with the part-practice method of teaching swimming strokes. During the research of the Doctoral Thesis, it was found out that when teaching backstroke and breaststroke certain relations of bilateral movements within one cycle, the diagonal or contralateral interaction of the upper and lower limbs is the determining component that improves the acquisition of swimming skills in 6–7-year-old children with preserved primitive reflexes. Compared to the part-practice method of teaching swimming strokes, the Thesis proves the optimisation model improves the learning of swimming skills. A statistically significant positive effect on the acquisition of swimming skills has been identified, manifested in children's improved functional performance (i.e. their ability to perform work over longer period) with reduced activity intensity of the main organ systems. The main principles of the content of the developed teaching optimisation model can be applied by swimming teachers at the stage of learning swimming strokes in working with children with preserved primitive reflexes.