游泳更聪明? 买游泳装备

科学日报（2012年11月16日）----小时候学会游泳的孩子，将比一般的孩子发展得更迅速(更早到达发展里程碑)。

ScienceDaily (Nov. 16, 2012) — Children who learn how to swim at a young age are reaching many developmental milestones earlier than the norm.

格里菲斯研究学院的研究人员，在三年中调查了澳大利亚、新西兰和美国的7000个5岁以下儿童的父母。

Researchers from the Griffith Institute for Educational Research surveyed parents of 7000 under-fives from Australia, New Zealand and the US over three years.

紧接着，又有180个3~5岁的儿童参与了更加深入的测试，使它成为世界上最综合的幼年游泳研究。

A further 180 children aged 3, 4 and 5 years have been involved in intensive testing, making it the world"s most comprehensive study into early-years swimming.

主管研究员罗宾·约根森教授说，研究表明：参与幼年游泳的小孩子，比一般的孩子学会各种技能的能力要更早。

Lead researcher Professor Robyn Jorgensen says the study shows young children who participate in early-years swimming achieve a wide range of skills earlier than the normal population.

“这种技能中有许多是像学前幼儿园到小学常规学习环境的转变技能。

"Many of these skills are those that help young children into the transition into formal learning contexts such as pre-school or school.

研究也发现，不管她们的社会经济背景如何，会游泳的人群与不会游泳的人群之间的区别是十分明显的。

"The research also found significant differences between the swimming cohort and non-swimmers regardless of socio-economic background.

然而，两个社会经济背景更好的测试组，比两个稍差的的测试组在测试中表现更好；四个工程科学学会的测试组表现，比一般测试群体表现更佳。

"While the two higher socio-economic groups performed better than the lower two in testing, the four SES groups all performed better than the normal population.

研究者也发现，研究群体和一般群体之间也不存在性别差异。

The researchers also found there were no gender differences between the research cohort and the normal population.

除了身体发展更快，小孩子们在视觉运动的技能取得的成绩要更好，比如剪纸、着色和绘制线条与形状，还有数理关系任务等。他们的口语表达，像一般读写和计算方面一样，表现出众。

As well as achieving physical milestones faster, children also scored significantly better in visual-motor skills such as cutting paper, colouring in and drawing lines and shapes, and many mathematically-related tasks. Their oral expression was also better as well as in the general areas of literacy and numeracy.

“许多这样的技能在其他的学习环境中很有价值，当过渡到学前学习，或者小学学习时，它们对小孩子也会很有帮助。”

"Many of these skills are highly valuable in other learning environments and will be of considerable benefit for young children as they transition into pre-schools and school."

这个研究项目是格里菲斯大学、Kids Alive Swim项目和澳大利亚游泳的共同课题。

The study is a joint project between Griffith University, Kids Alive Swim Program and Swim Australia.

Report: http://www.griffith.edu.au