Water competence: new insights into swimming and drowning

Biography

Stephen J Langendorfer, PhD, is Professor and interim Director of the School of Human Movement, Sport, and Leisure Studies at Bowling Green State University in the USA. Dr Langendorfer is a recognised authority in the areas of aquatics and lifespan motor development. He earned degrees from SUNY-Cortland, Purdue University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison as well as studied at the Deutsche Sporthochschule, Köln, Germany. In addition to academics, he has worked as a lifeguard, water safety and canoeing instructor, instructor trainer, wilderness trip leader, and coach.

Dr Langendorfer has authored numerous scholarly publications (including Aquatic Readiness:

Developing Water Competence in Young Children, 1995, and a second edition in preparation) as well as presented widely on motor development, assessment, and especially developmental aquatics. He is the founding editor of the International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education. He has volunteered for the American Red Cross for almost 50 years including contributions to developing their parent-child and revisions of the learn-to-swim programs. He is a member of Red Cross’s Scientific Advisory Council (aquatic sub-council) that reviews and provides evidenced-based science for Red Cross programs. His scholarly work and service, especially in aquatics, has been recognised with awards including the Golden Whale Award from the Commodore Longfellow Society in 1993 and most recently the 2013 Ireland Medal and a Golden Lecture in Wroclaw, Poland in 2014.

Synopsis

Langendorfer and Bruya (1995) originally proposed “water competence” as a gender-inclusive alternative to “watermanship,” to describe aquatic expertise broadly conceived. Various other authors (e.g., Stallman, et al., 2008; Moran, et al., 2011; Quan, et al., 2013) have suggested it as minimum performance required to reduce drowning risk. I propose that contemporary science requires envisioning human aquatic performance, learning, and instruction uniquely by associating water competence with five key principle: 1) dynamic; 2) individual; 3) contextual; 4) probabilistic; and 5) developmental. It is critical to view water competence dynamically, particularly using Newell’s (1986) constraints model, rather than from static “ability” conceptions. Water competence views efficient and effective control and coordination of aquatic tasks as resultant of interactive relationships among individuals’ personal characteristics, specific aquatic environments in which persons find themselves, and unique task demands required. The dynamic developmental view argues against a unitary approach to swimming instruction or to drowning prevention efforts. It should embrace the notion that individual capabilities emerge in semi-predictable orders across the lifespan as well as moment to moment and from one aquatic situation to the next. Because it recognises the complexity of water competence, I argue for engaging in lines of scientific “strong inference” (Platt, 1964) to explore how persons, aquatic environments, and task demands interact, while searching for existence of lawful, yet heuristic, principles by which to guide our clinical and professional behaviours in swimming and aquatics.