Aquatic therapy encourages physical, sensory, and language development in children with a wide range of disabilities, injuries, and functional levels. The pool setting is a highly motivating and physically supportive environment, so children often engage in tasks they typically would not tolerate. It is an excellent environment for working on therapeutic goals such as relaxation, flexibility, balance, coordination, endurance, respiratory system improvement, sport-specific training, pain management, post-injury or surgery, wellness, weight loss, gross and fine motor development, and sensory processing. Such a setting also allows caregivers to safely support their children, as it’s easier on caregivers’ bodies to hold and assist a child in a supportive pool environment than on land.

Aquatic therapy provides opportunities to practice functional skills such as dressing, grooming, and hygiene before and after the pool session. With movement and multi-sensory input, speech and language work is likely to occur as well. When the child relies on the caregiver in the pool, verbal requests and good eye contact are more likely to occur.

Aquatic therapy often helps kids who have plateaued with a skill on land “over the hump” and achieve that goal after working on it in the water!