Water Competency Intervention in Autism

The WOTA2 measures a child's mental adaptation, adjustment to the pool, postural balance, and the ability to move and change position in the water, based on the Halliwick concept. WOTA2 assesses 27 swim skills scored on a 0-3 scale with a minimal detectable change score of 11.5. Higher scores indicate better skills. WOTA2 has high test-retest reliability (ICC=.97) and is validated for children with autism-like characteristics.

WOTA1 measures a child's mental adaptation, adjustment to the pool, postural balance, and the ability to move and change position in the water, based on the Halliwick concept. WOTA1 assesses 13 swim skills on a 1-4 scale with a minimal detectable change score of 4.5.

WCC was developed by the AquOTic team and incorporates additional skills not on the WOTA that are considered necessary for water competence. These include jumping in and resurfacing, treading water, and turning around in the water. This checklist is a compilation of items from other swim checklists such as those used by the American Red Cross and clinical trials of swim interventions in autism

COPM is an individualized standardized outcome measure sensitive to change in performance over time. The COPM has been adapted for use in pediatric clinical trials for caregivers of children with disabilities. This measure will be administered by an occupational therapist via a semi-structured interview in which caregivers will identify 3-5 functional goals related to swim performance and water safety. Caregivers will rate how well their child performed each goal (COPM - Performance), and how satisfied they are with their child's performance (COPM - Satisfaction). The same caregiver will be interviewed at pre- and post-test assessments for the AquOTic program. A change of 2 or more points in each scale of the COPM is considered a minimum clinically important difference (MCID). The adapted COPM has high internal consistency (.86 - .88) with content and construct validity.