Swimming pool designers have made increasing use of gently sloping surfaces as entryways into swimming pools to better accommodate individuals with disabilities. Despite the good intentions behind this design feature, it may have the unintended consequence of increasing the drowning risks for young children. Recent research shows that young children have a much higher likelihood of entering a body of water and reaching a submersion point when they can do so via a gently sloping surface than when they must traverse an abrupt edge to access the water. With increasing crawling and walking experience, young children show greater and greater reluctance to cross an edge into a body of water. Curiously, however, crawling and walking experience have no effect on young children’s likelihood of entering a body of water via a gently sloping surface. Even more curiously, swimming lessons have the opposite effect on children’s likelihood of entering a body of water via an edge or a sloped surface. Children who had participated in more than 10 swimming lessons showed a greater likelihood of avoiding a body of water when they could access it via an edge, but a greater likelihood of entering a body of water when they could access it via a slope, compared to infants with fewer than 10 swimming lessons. These findings raise important questions about other swimming pool design features that may pose greater drowning risks for young children.
In this presentation, we review the aforementioned research alongside other research on how young children navigate slopes and drop-offs. We then use this research to analyze how young children might behave on a Baja shelf in a pool. Our analysis suggests that Baja shelves pose a particularly serious drowning risk for young children. We discuss the implications our analysis has for which design features swimming pools should include.
Angela Wild is a water safety advocate and longtime swim teacher with a motor control and public health background. She brings over 20 years of experience in the learn-to-swim and drowning prevention industry. Currently, Angela operates a boutique swim school in San Diego County, while also devoting time to her 2 non-profit organizations and volunteering on several boards that advocate for water safety and drowning prevention.
David Anderson is the Director of Marian Wright Edelman Institute for the Study of Children, Youth and Families at San Francisco State University (SFSU). Formerly a Professor and Chair of the Department of Kinesiology at SFSU, David has been engaged in a wide range of service, teaching, and research activities. His research centers on understanding motor skills, and how motor activity influences psychological functioning. He has authored and co-authored numerous peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, presentations, an activity manual, and a popular textbook, and has received significant funding for his research from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Education. David is an Active Fellow in the National Academy of Kinesiology and serves on several advisory and editorial committees.