Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to Shining Through Inspiring Voices with Autism with your host, Jennifer Dantzler. My name is Bryant and I have autism. Thank you for taking the time to learn about the world of autism. If you enjoy what you hear, make sure you like and subscribe and follow this podcast.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: Hey, everyone, this is Jennifer Dantzler, and I'm the executive director and founder of Inspire ND, a nonprofit whose mission is to create truly inclusive communities through education and engagement. The goal of this podcast is to shine a light on real people and their stories in hopes of inspiring others who are on this journey of autism. Either themselves, their child, their loved one, their co worker. I truly believe ignorance is not bliss and we cannot be inclusive communities if we do not understand the people in the community.
With autism now affecting 1 in 31 people, we need to get louder about this topic. We recognize that autism is a spectrum. There are a lot of people with a lot of different needs, a lot of resources available or none available. And we know that in every episode we can't meet everyone's needs for their specific interests.
However, we hope that in each episode you do gleam some kind of insight as to how you can help your child or yourself be a better advocate. And as we go through our podcast, our goal really is to address the entire spectrum, the various needs, the various environments that we're going to be in. And we hope that there's something in every episode for each one of you. So let's get started.
Today we are actually going to be talking a little bit more about swim safety and a wonderful program that helps support our families and our people with autism and other intellectual disabilities and people of all needs. So I'd like to welcome Cindy Freedman here from Swim Angelfish, and she is a co founder of the organization and she herself is an occupational therapist and a recreational therapist. So, Cindy, thank you so much for being here.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: Oh, you're welcome. We're going to splash away, I guess.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: I love that. I love that. Okay, tell me a little bit about why this organization was created.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: In 1999, I moved from Kansas City to the east coast to Sandy Hook, and I was doing aquatic therapy and I just ran into the most amazing person named Aileen Tisser, who was a physical therapist. And together we started doing aquatic therapy. And honestly, the snowball of that was there's such a big need for aquatic OT, aquatic PT, aquatic rec therapy. In 2009, we had a lot of kids we would send to swim lessons and they would come back out saying they don't know how to teach our our children to swim or young adults. And we created adaptive Swim Whisper methodology. And it just has snowballed into many, many things that are free resources for your audience that if we could get in the hands of more people, really could help improve safety and reduce risk. So I'm really honored to be here, and I know Aileen would be honored to be here as well.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Well, thank you so much for being here, because as you said, there's so much of a need, and unfortunately, drowning is the number one cause of death in our people with autism. So I think we can't do water safety, educating first responders, et cetera, you name it. So, okay, first, give me a little bit of an overview of the services that you do offer.
[00:03:13] Speaker A: I will, but I want to say what you said is so important because 160 times more likely to drown, right as our kids and people with autism. But sometimes people and your listeners might not know this is the leading cause of death for typical kids 5 and under is also drowning. So these resources that we're giving to families, they might have a couple of kids, the resources and the things that they can learn are also going to help with that alarming statistic as well for their typical siblings.
[00:03:45] Speaker B: Wow, that is fascinating and such a good point to think about, because I think as parents, for those who might have someone with a challenge or a disability, and then neurotypical children, they don't think they can use the same resources. And so to your point, they should. What are some of the services that you offer?
[00:04:01] Speaker A: So Swim Angelfish is a global organization, and we offer so many things for your listeners. Number one, we have a button on swimangelfish.com on the homepage and it says resources. And in that page, any of your listeners, anybody in the world, the first dropdown gives you four little mini courses that are absolutely free. So, for example, maybe one of your listeners goes to a pool and their child is always getting yelled at by the lifeguard. There's a lifeguard video that is called Soft signs to approach differently that helps to teach lifeguards. It's only 17 minutes. If they see somebody maybe covering their ears or highly seeking that they could approach that parent and say, hey, I noticed that your son seems to be really seeking the water. Is there anything I could do to help you be safer during your experience today? Oh, yes, he loves to go to the slide. Oh, let me put a stop sign by the side. So it's lots of things that will give strategies for immediate use in the mini courses. The second dropdown that is Also free, because, you know, we're known as the girls that give it all away for free. You know that. But at the last conference that that's what somebody said in the audience. But we really try to balance the free and the paid because we want to leave a legacy of, of drowning prevention. We've been together 30 years. The second dropdown is the most important. If you're listening to this and you're worried about wandering and water, that is the most important thing to share. We just uploaded it now to 14 pages of a free download. And yes, to your listeners, you can link it on your website, you can send it to people and it's autism and all ability Water safety toolkit. Second dropdown, it says download. Yes, you can share it. Yes, you can download. Yes, you can print it. And we just put four pages of our 40 page activity book in there. Jennifer, there's a really cool ritual which I won't talk about now, but then there's the activity book and then the final one for anybody that's listening. If you have a backyard pool or you swim somewhere and you're highly interested in the pecs pictures, you could print them and laminate them if there's 40 pictures. Or you also can drop them right from your phone to your AAC device. So there's a first, Then there's a, you know, underwater, a towel time, a flippers. There's 40 of them and we actually just updated them. So I'm proud to say that anybody could access them. And those are the free resources.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: Okay, well that's amazing. Like even the first one you said for lifeguards, again, that seems so simple. And lifeguards do need to get training at the beginning of each year. Right. And need to get certification. And wouldn't that be incredible to make that be a required part of certification to be a lifeguard?
[00:06:47] Speaker A: We would love that. We have some people that have asked us for the 17 minutes and we if you're on this and you know people doing lifeguard training, we will give them the 17 minutes and they can put it in their training, no problem. But when you do it through that mini course, Jennifer offers a little quiz and it also has a handout. So if you want to use it as an aquatic in service or you're at a summer camp or an overnight camp, you have the resource of that versus just the 17 minutes.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: Wonderful. One of your service offerings is all of these incredible free downloads. What else do you do?
[00:07:24] Speaker A: We do professional training. And in that professional training, we offer a variety of Courses. So it's all online. People always ask that. We've been together for almost 30 years. Everything we've created is us together. And we have a 14 hour adaptive swim whisper certification. I would tell you that of the, I don't know, 10,000 comments that live in our platform, everybody always says, why don't you tell them that this works for typical kids and for adults and things. So you would strengthen the way you teach swimming for anybody that has a unique need or anybody that has an underlying roadblock. And then it's multi level. So there's a level two and three and four. And Jennifer, we like to also help aquatic professionals and parents know that it isn't just to get a private. If you have a child with profound autism, we have kids that have profound autism that are swimming on swim squad, swim team, swim strong. They're actually doing the strokes and on land, maybe they're not even verbal. They are doing that. It is possible. So our training is to help coaches, swim instructors, even parents to learn to address the underlying problem and address the science behind what they're seeing so they can reach swim skill benchmarks. Some people don't want 14 hours of training. How much training does somebody need to be a BCBA or to be a teacher? Like some people don't want that much training.
We teach the science behind how to teach more effectively or how to teach faster with more comfort. Kind of, if you're looking for that, that would be the way to go if you really want to make an impact and understand.
Now people have asked us, we don't want 14 hours of training. Can we get two hour training? So we launched a two hour all ability course. It's all online, it's $99.
It's 10 behaviors and 10 tips that could be a parent, it could be a coach. City of Regina, Canada just bought 50 of them. Every swim instructor is going to have two hours of training. They need some more specific training for adaptive and the swim whisper difference. We don't, we're not going to tell you this is what anxiety looks like, or this is what down syndrome looks like, or this is what somebody that might have physical impairments look like. We're going to give you strategies and techniques to use in the pool. So if I'm in a wheelchair and I'm rocking back and forth, that might be seeking. If I have ADHD and I keep going underwater, that might be seeking. And if I have profound autism, I am splashing the water. We're going to give you strategies to address the Seeking help them to seek and then turn it into swim skills. So that's kind of the OT PT rec therapy perspective. Anybody could take the training. 16 year olds have taken it, 70 year olds have taken it. It provides a robust new set of eyes to be able to teach more effectively with more comfort. And we're super proud to announce that we have an all abilities coaches tips coming out next month which is also a two hour course that people have been asking for. We have a parent child course. We have a whole section of aquatic therapy online training courses. And then we just yesterday did our third webinar and it was land based strategies for inclusion. And the first two that we did were seven tips for aquatic therapy and then the other one was profound autism and that one is five different stories shows like how do you buy this stop sign? How do you download those visuals? How do you work with somebody that's worried Water autism accidents attracted. It's a $49 webinar. So those series that's all located on our professional page. Lots of our knowledge in little bites and it is giving immediate strategies. Like somebody at the Profound Autism Conference, Jennifer came up to me and said, look at this video. It's my son who got up at 10 at night, went in the bathtub in his pajamas, turned it on and here he is in the bathtub in his pajamas. Well, they can purchase a stop sign. We have Aquamentor is somebody we partnered with and we made stop signs with him. And there's a video in that Profound Autism. They had put the stop sign on their boat, they put the stop sign in their bathtub. So if that little piece of information could help somebody that's experiencing those same things, we're really mindful to try to make different kinds of courses. But all of them will have strategies and techniques that you walk away with that you can immediately do with all
[00:11:46] Speaker B: this said and you've sort of started to address it for a lot of families. When I talk to them about water safety, they say I don't really care if my child learns how to swim. And so can you talk a little bit about the difference between water safety and swim lessons? And this is not about learning the backstroke or the breaststroke or eight. Right. This is truly about water safety.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: Have had those registrations in 30 years. I get registrations like that. Like I don't care if they learn to swim because a lot of times the parents don't think it's possible. And the things that you see that become possible at the pool is really mind blowing because the neurochemistry of the water. When you're in the pool neck deep, it's a deep pressure. And that deep pressure releases dopamine and dopamine washes away adrenaline. Just being in the water, parents begin to start seeing, I don't know what you did, but they sleep so good every Tuesday. Or I don't know what you did, but they're putting three and four words together. Or they sat at the restaurant after swimming. So now we go eat on Tuesday. There's a great article, ADHD and the Science behind the Swim Drills in our blog section that talks about that neurochemistry, the beyond the what the magical properties of the water can do for all people. The water safety is so imperative, which is, I'm sort of embarrassed that it's only five years ago that we launched it, the Water Safety Toolkit. But we didn't really understand how we could launch something free that would address the unique needs of the highly attracted to water, autism, accidents and things. So we said, what is different? And so the second dropdown on the free resources, that's the water safety Toolkit, the most imperative thing for water safety. All of those things are in that toolkit, every single one of them for free. Don't put your child in a blue shirt, put him in a neon yellow shirt in the water. When you think about a rescue tube, your child's in an accident, somebody's swimming after them, they have a rescue tube. Let's have them touch, hold, feel and swim with a rescue tube. Doesn't mean they need to learn to swim. But if I recognize that, let's have a rescue tube in the pediatrician's office, in the OT clinic, in the ABA center. In this week of class, everybody's going to touch the rescue tube when they walk in. We're going to play a game where we pass the rescue tube. Now somebody's swimming after your child who's reactive and rigid and they're like, oh, that's that thing I touch. So those are the kinds of things I would say for water safety that Aileen and I are very proud of in our water safety toolkit that can make a life changing difference in an unlikely event that somebody wanders or falls in the water and there is somebody there that can rescue them. Those are the kinds of tips that are sometimes mind blowing to parents if we could get them to them.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: It's absolutely mind blowing. Like, I'm ready tomorrow to sponsor having one of those in every ABA clinic, right? To start working on, well, get a
[00:14:44] Speaker A: pink One that has a Swim Angelfish logo on it.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: The QR code to the water safety toolkit. I'm all in.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: That sounds good. I mean, really. Because it's truly little things like that. And I think sometimes for parents it's a little overwhelming maybe for their profoundly autistic child. Where do I start? Right? And you literally just said, like, let's just get exposed to those things, what they wear in the pool. Never would have thought of that. I think that's wonderful. Do you have any specific success stories that you want to share?
[00:15:13] Speaker A: You know, I don't know how many of your listeners like YouTube, but if you go to swim Angelfish, YouTube. I was just on a zoom with somebody and I. I was showing them a swim crew and they all have the bright colored spottable on and it's a shirt that one of the moms made because they're her kid bolts and wanders. And they are high sensory seeking kids that are always moving. And they're in a video on YouTube. And I have the dad holding a stop sign up and down. And we have these four kids. You know, one's biting his arm, but then he follows directions. The other one's splashing and going upside down backwards. And then they all get on the wall and blast off and glide on their back and swim back and hold the side for five. These are all kids that were in private, then they did semi private. And now we call them the swim crew. And they're in these opportunities together where they come out more regulated, they come out with more words. They meet each other at the trampoline park. Now they go to each other's birthday parties. It just permeates all beyond that. And there's a boy, Parker, that is high sensory seeking. And his dad came and said, I don't think it's possible to teach him to swim. Kind of what you were talking about before. And I covered the other day and I was like screaming to his dad, I'm like, he's doing breaststroke. And he goes, I know. It's like, I can't believe it. And then there was another typical kid in the pool and I said, would you swim next to him? And he swam side by side, like three different strokes. And I told the dad, I said, he is going to be able to be in a little swim group. And you know, some of these kids, that's not possible. But when you have the water, it becomes possible, right? Because you're more regulated. Our success stories, if you go on Swim Angelfish, you can hit the Playlist swim success. There's a little boy with a spinal cord injury that's five years old that swims by himself. There's a girl with cerebral palsy that uses a motorized wheelchair, and she jumps off a diving board, and then her mom hands her a noodle, and she's like, I don't need it. There's, I think, four or five videos of kids with autism.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: So now we have all these people really, really excited. We have all these parents who are really excited to do this. Where are your services? Or do you have a train the trainer model? Like, how do we get you in every city, in every town? How do you. We get people who are trained through your organization?
[00:17:30] Speaker A: We are not a train the trainer. And I think sometimes people will take our information and share it. It'd be like me saying, Do 15 breaths and give a compression over there, you know?
[00:17:42] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: It is lifeguarding. You wouldn't say, here's the rescue tube. Make sure you count how many people. Because it is complex, the adaptive. We have people trained in every single state and 26 countries. We have a directory on our website so they can go to swimangelfish.com, search the directory, and they can see if someone's trained level one, level two, level three, level four. They can fill out a contact form and say, hey, I'm in Texoma, Texas, and I don't see anybody trained here. There's 576 people in the directory, but there's probably 2,500 people trained once. Sometimes people get waitlisted, then they don't want to be in the directory anymore in Texas. I will tell you, we have so many people trained in Texas. I'm very proud to say that there's Texoma Swim Academy, the swim lesson people. I could rattle probably 15 off just off the top of my head. And they worked together in the last couple of weeks, and they ran this huge water safety event with the police department, and they impacted so many people. And they had, like, five different swim schools that had certified adaptive swim whispers come together.
I think it was even in the news. But we have a study Spotlight and media channel on Swim Angelfish, YouTube, where you can see some of those kind of events and what we never expected to happen. If I'm being honest with you, when you go to the water safety toolkit, people are finding the water safety toolkit now, and just like you reading it, they're like, oh, we have a station of touch hold and swim of the rescue tube. Oh, the kids should put the life jacket on and if they don't put it on, we'll put a long sleeve cotton shirt and try. If they don't like that touch, we'll figure out ways where they can wear it and then we'll see what it's like when they're in the water. Oh, we're going to have them hold the side for five. Oh, we're going to do that. And they can create an adaptive water safety event using the free resources training. Some people in the Adaptive Swim Whispers collaborate with ABA centers or hospitals or child protection agencies. That, I will tell you, Jennifer, is a snowball of things that I never thought would happen from that water safety toolkit and it's happening around the world. We just did one in Minneapolis. We just did one in Ohio. Ohio. We just did one in. They. They just did one in Texas. Doesn't have to be us. We can consult with you and help you to find resources to show you how to use it. You can dive into the Spotlight media. The Swim Whisper directory is definitely the way to go to find somebody trained near you. And if you're a parent listening and you're swim school, this is like touchy. But if you're a parent listening and you're swimming school says, yes, we're trained and adaptive. I think it's important to educate yourself with some of our free resources and then ask, what is that training? Oh, we did one hour on what autism is. Did you have any formal learn to swim certification? Yes, I'm certified to teach swimming. What is your certification for adaptive swimming? Because it's a very, very gray area.
So you will go somewhere and they will say, yes, we have adaptive swimming swimming. But that might mean that a guest lecturer came in and told them this is what cerebral palsy down syndrome autism looks like. And make sure you say first. Then it might not be what you need. But the good news is you could say there's this organization and they have a $99 all abilities course. It's not a certification, but it's 10 behaviors and 10 tips. Would you look into it? Or you might say, I would like to pay for that for one of your instructors.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: No, that. That's huge. I know. I believe you had talked with my development director about, you know, maybe possibly having you come down to the Houston area and launch a more formal program. But in the meantime, yes, tons of it sounds like tons of amazing resources that people could start with tomorrow.
[00:21:29] Speaker A: Yeah, people can get trained and they get trained and then they use a provider training logo and certification badge. So you can find them and then you can even email and say, hey, I'm seeing this person says they're level two trained. You know your stay certified level two once you do level two. But people can go all the way up to level four, you know, just as you would find in the hair salons. Right, Like a master person. So if you think your case is a little tricky or you've been to five or six swim schools and haven't had success, that might be a good way to be able to get some success and arm your swim instructor with the strategies they need to effectively teach your child. I will tell the parents on here also, also if you watch the parent tips free mini course. I have had parents and I, I do think I'm a master instructor. I'm, I'm 62 years old and I think I am very good at teaching. But I have had parents watch that 22 minute thing and come to me the next session and say, you know how you always struggle to get them on their back? This is something we do at home and I think it might help you. And then I use the word like quiet hands, look at the stars. And next thing I know they're going on their back. And I tried a million things or you know, I watched that and I know he's always grabbing you and you don't know what to do but just say safe hands. And I'm like, safe hand sculling. And then they're safe hand sculling and they stop reaching for me. Like parents are very important in finding these little things. And sometimes when they watch the free resources, they give us little nuggets that actually help us overcome an obstacle of managing submerging or inability to go on the back end. For you parents listening, we have to teach our children and our young adults to go on their back because if they fall in water, we want them to roll over and be able to be on their back. We want them to submerge because a successful submerging equals a more successful save. If I've never gone underwater and many parents listening are like, yeah, my kid's not going under, that is a very common roadblock. We teach put your chin down and wipe your face.
And we teach under for five because we need the kids to experience under, come up and take a breath. So then in the unlikely event that they do have an accident around water and they wander that they have experienced under, so they come up without a complete over emotional response and panic. And sometimes our parents, they're like, listen, I Can't get them in the car. You know, you took them under last week and now we get in the parking lot and they are, are not even wanting to get out of the car. So we have to be patient as instructors and we have to educate. Maybe that means sitting at a table with a bowl of water in the comfort of your own home in the position of flexion, which is calming and blowing bubbles and putting your face in, in a bowl on your table. And then the parents like, oh, we can do that, right? Yeah. Okay, well, we're not going to go under the next couple of weeks, but we have to find a balance of a way to work towards it.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: That's exactly my next question was going to be what can parents literally do today to start doing this? And again, back to the point in the beginning about you even talked about the literal physical mechanics of what happens with water. You know, I think for a lot of our families, parents will say, my child's not interested in the pool, he's not interested in swimming. Yet they will naturally gravitate towards water because literally of this physical thing that happens that they don't understand is happening. So for every parent, whether you want your child to be in special Olympic swimming or on a swim team or not, we have to teach this water safety. And everything you've just said, you're talking about exposure skills to use, rolling on their back, getting them exposed to the safety tube. So many things that parents could be doing tomorrow and the very first place they start is going to your website. Right. So tell, tell everyone again where they can find you.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: Well, I actually have even a, a QR code that has a video of the water safety toolkit when you go to swim. Angelfish YouTube channel. If you're more visual and you type in water safety must haves, there's a 1 minute 24 second video that actually shows you how to find those resources. But the resource tab is real and it lives on swimangelfish.com the Water Safety Activity Book has the three pages and I'd like Jennifer, for you to understand the ask permission before you get in the bathtub at home and ask permission, then add a physical routine. So I'm asking, that might be pointing, that might be nodding, whatever it is, and then a physical routine that's meaningful to the child. So if you go on swimangelfish.com and you click the activity book playlist, you're going to see a nonverbal boy with autism with his cute little brother putting hands in the air. Touch my toes Clap my hands, turn around, ask again. It's on his AAC device. It's on the papers that are in that free download of create your own routine. And I have had parents come up to me and say, my kid got away and he was doing jumping jacks and turning around and trying to find me, and it gave me 10 seconds to grab him. Kids wiggle away. It happens. They're in the fountain, they're in the pond. They're in the retention pond. If you live in an apartment and your kid is going to the retention pond. I went to the most horrifying retention pond. Drowning stories of autism.
Can't they advocate to put stop signs at the water's edge? Some associations won't let you, but if you're in that, there's a strategy. Put a stop sign at the retention pond in your community. Get these initiatives. You don't need me to do those. Read the water safety toolkit. Take some action for the initiatives. Buy your school system a rescue tube. Get one donated from Jennifer that's pink that says swim angel. There you go.
[00:27:05] Speaker B: Okay, so this permission thing, going back to that for a minute, what you're saying is we want to teach those individuals to ask permission. Therefore, if they're training to do that and they wander to the detention pond, there's no one to ask permission of. Hopefully it increases the odds that they won't go into the pond because they did not complete the chain they were taught to do. Correct?
[00:27:23] Speaker A: Right. The ritual routine. So I would encourage anybody who's very interested in these kinds of things. The profound autism webinar is $49, and it's literally shows you stories of kids who have profound autism.
And it shows in real time. I worked so hard on it's five stories and it's one hour and all of that information wrapped up into storification versus a handout of looking at things.
I wish there were initiatives. If you're listening to this, I would like to be involved in initiatives that are. We are going to have rescue tubes at every school. The school systems. I don't know if you know this, but there's lots of drowning prevention initiatives that are getting legal action right now. So the state of Louisiana passed a law that we're doing bombing training, we're doing safe schools training. We now are required to have water safety training, but it's still a little bit gray. It doesn't say you have to have a rescue tube in all preschool classes and this and that. But there is good initiatives. I highly recommend following Stop Drowning now Bobby Hazen, he's phenomenal. We're partners with him.
Lots of free drowning prevention things we're part on there as well. But I think we can do better in the school systems for all kids. I don't really know how to get there because I'm busy trying to make videos but I would appreciate any foundations any people on here that have aquatic initiatives. Alicia Coleman from Autism Advocates as a powerhouse. She's we're working with her to try to create these these aquatism programs powered by Swim Angelfish. If you're a spinal cord injury we're doing a big event in Virginia where people who have spinal cord injuries for the first time are getting back in the water. The Swim Whisperer's methodology and certification no matter what your need is, we have resources for you professional training and we believe that the parents have the right to have somebody teach them that is certified to teach swim age and that can do adaptive but has the understanding of the science behind whether it's a 49 course, a 99 course or the full certification which it's 5.99 for 14 hours, a two day workshop but a group of 10 or more is only 3.99.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: Right.
[00:29:40] Speaker A: That's a pretty reasonable price at your own pace, in the comfort of your own home. Multiple videos and contents to go Back to. Robust YouTube channel, robust resources. We need you all to share the information and start your own initiatives because we can't do it ourselves and we're trying to create the strategies for inclusion for land based. The webinar was last night and I didn't see it before Aileen did it and I was watching it like screaming like oh that's fine, that's amazing. Oh, it's going to live in the webinar section. So the day to day operations that we have, we are in Connecticut, New York, Mass, New Hampshire. We do private, semi private small group aquatic therapy. We're highly wait listed. We do lots of consulting. It's 250 an hour. Whether you want to host a water safety event or you're a therapy clinic or you're a swim school or you're a YMCA and there's money out there for people. Jennifer, the Ohio ymca, they got a huge grant. They flew us out there. They trained 15 people and they had a huge water safety event on top of that. Minneapolis V3 Sports. I've been there three times. Abby's hope. I just went out there again to Minneapolis. They funded 20 people to get trained in adaptive swim whispers. They're going to have us back out there next year, do that training and then add on this adaptive water safety, which we just thought we were giving a free resource. We really didn't know it was going to be. Let's have these events. And the parents are mind blown at the events. The parents have kids come in they wouldn't hold the rescue to. They're leaving. The guy's like, oh, my God, he's happily holding this and swimming it when we're leaving. How did you make this happen? But the magical properties of the water help us to address the underlying strategies. And hold the side for five. Swim at the rescue tube. Ask permission. Happy to plug the new activity book. As I worked so hard that. It's $8 for a bundle of 50. You can get them on Amazon for 14 each. But honestly, the bundles sell for $8. You have to get 50 of them. I package them myself with love. Tie the bows on them, put the pink fish in the neon vest, usually throw in a hat. And we have the activity book playlist. Like, these are for you to do all the things that we're talking about, but in real time in a book. And as you'll see on the playlist, profound. Kids with autism, they're taking a character in a bucket. I only go under for five, lifting it up. Because underwater breath holding leads to passing out, leads to drowning. And all that information is in the activity book.
[00:32:12] Speaker B: Wonderful.
[00:32:13] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a lot.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: It is a lot. But I mean, so many things. So everyone listening right now? As soon as you get off this podcast, you need to go to swimangelfish.com, start downloading the resources, start talking, as you said, to your local YMCAs, your local swim instructors. And let's get the message out there. Let's get the tools out there.
[00:32:30] Speaker A: Your pediatricians, your ABA centers, you know this the behaviorist. I found this whole new thing of I'm on this rampage of there's nothing on my blogs and there's nothing in my. That says if you're an ABA therapist or a behaviorist. And 1 in 31 kids, they're all seeing behaviorists. And when I say to them, check out the parent tips, they're like, but I'm not a parent. I'm working. That's my next step to get into. But if you are a behaviorist listening to this, ask your can you swim? Can you ask permission at the bathtub? Do these initiatives go to the activity book playlist and look what they're doing in their ABA session. I just showed somebody this morning. She was mind blown. She's like, I never thought of it. I hope you guys are feeling that way too.
[00:33:11] Speaker B: Absolutely. No, absolutely Incredible. I'm so excited by this. And Cindy, I'm so grateful that you took the time to come on because obviously you are so busy and out there changing the world or saving the world quite literally.
[00:33:22] Speaker A: You guys can do that better for me by sharing the links, sharing the water safety tool toolkit, sharing the swim success stories. We were on Good Morning America Digital and that's on swim Angelfish, YouTube. That's a pretty powerful story where we have some other news clips on there. And so I just encourage you guys to not only get those things, share those stories, do your own in services at your schools, at wherever you are, pediatricians offices. Yes. Here's a rescue tube. Here's a copy of the toolkit. Would you have this in your office for the month of, of May?
[00:33:53] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. And we will have a lot of those links within our show notes as well if you're listening to this podcast. So Cindy, again, thank you so much. This has been incredible and we are definitely not done. We will definitely talk about how we can partner and how we can get more of that specifically down here in the Houston area and everywhere. So thank you so much.
[00:34:10] Speaker A: All right, thank you.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: If you need help or resources, whether you're a parent, someone on the spectrum, a business or a community organization who want to know more more or need help or want to share resources, please reach out to us at Info.
[00:34:26] Speaker A: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow us, leave a review and share with others who want to celebrate neurodiversity. Until next time, keep shining.
