Preliminary results of a study at Griffith University in Queensland reveal that children who learn how to swim at a young age have physical, social, intellectual and language development advantages compared to the non-swimmers.

Professor of the study, Robyn Jorgensen reports that the ongoing study shows already that the swimmers' confidentiality is better than that of the non-swimmers of the same age group.

The study is still ongoing and will last over 4 years. Researchers annually distribute a survey among 10,000 children in the age of 5 or younger of which some already learned how to swim whereas some did not.

Professor Jorgensen states: "We've only just done the first year of the study but already the indicators are suggesting that the children who have been in longer periods of time in early swimming do appear to be hitting those intellectual milestones, those physical milestones, earlier than children who aren't doing swimming".

Researchers looked at the way youngsters express themselves. They aim to find clues about their social development and their physical being. So far the results confirm that swimming lessons are contributive to all of those areas. That is why researchers recommend lessons as good preparation for school.