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Aquatic experiences including structured instructional programs for young children have become extremely popular over the past two decades despite opposition and controversy. Surprisingly, this popularity and controversy have not given rise to extensive or sustained research efforts by exercise scientists or aquatic professionals. Most information available for assessing risks and benefits of aquatic experiences for young children must be gleaned from ancillary sources in medical and educational literature. This paper reviews important issues and questions in the medical, developmental, and pedagogical areas of early childhood aquatics. The need for basic and applied research efforts by teams of exercise scientists from physiologic, psychologic, medical, and aquatic backgrounds is apparent.

Little information is available on the safety of supervised exercise programs for children. This retrospective case review describes the experience over 5 years in a private, outpatient, physician-directed therapeutic exercise program. Observations were made on a total of 47 patients referred by their physicians or parents for exercise programs for diseases, including obesity (26), cystic fibrosis (10), cardiac disease (3), asthma (3), and others (5). Patients performed circuit training with an exposure that consisted of 2,646 total sessions (56.3 ± 63.3 sessions/patient), equivalent to 1,507.9 hours (32.1 ± 35.5 hr/patient) of exercise time. There were three minor accidents (1.9/1,000 patient hours). Physical examination by the attending physician was negative in all three cases: No treatment was indicated, and no patient missed any training time due to these incidents. No significant injuries or cardiorespiratory complications were observed in this exercise program.

Knowledge of cardiac output changes during exercise is helpful for understanding normal exercise physiology and the effect of disease upon exercise performance. There are four noninvasive techniques applicable to measurement of cardiac output in children: Indirect Fick, acetylene rebreathing, electrical bioimpedance, and Doppler. Each technique requires substantial operator experience to obtain reliable and reproducible results.

This article examines psychological stress in children’s sports by presenting results from a panel discussion held with four young athletes ranging in age from 11 to 16 years. The discussion focused on stress and its sources, consequences, and how to cope. Results validated existing research on youth sports stress by showing that most young athletes are not placed under excessive stress. Rather, certain children in specific situations experience high levels of competitive state anxiety. Consistent with previous research, the stress of sports competition was also found to be no more anxiety provoking than other childhood evaluative activities. Future research directions identified from the panel’s responses included the need to identify strategies for coping with stress and ways of teaching these to young athletes, as well as ways to educate parents and coaches on how to improve communication skills. Finally, based on the panel’s remarks, practical implications for facilitating the youth sport experience are discussed.