I have done it, and it was pretty ugly. And slow.
But i rarely swim in pools, so it doesn’t come up often. I swim in lakes and in the ocean and rarely in rivers. I’ve never enjoyed chlorinated pools.
Huh. I had no idea. Is that because they are less likely to instinctively follow social norms like “only use the pool with other people”?
I don’t know if this is possible, but have you considered moving him to a different instructor or style of teaching? There’s a really wide range of “how to teach children to swim” and everyone learns in different ways. It’s possible that the instruction he has is a bad for for his learning style or other issues. For instance, there’s been a lot of discussion about people who dislike putting their face in the water. There’s a lot of swimming that can be done and taught without much water on the face, but not everyplace supports that.
It’s the only sport that can save your life.
I believe that swimming lessons should be required for all children.
All sorts of sports can save your life. Running probably the most common. If you can’t run away martial arts may save your life.
Indeed. Badminton is the only sport that has never saved a life. 
I’m not trying to be an a-hole here, but do you have a cite for this? I’m genuinely curious, particularly as I was formally diagnosed high-functioning autistic last October. I did learn to swim early-ish (age 8 maybe) and I’ve never been uncomfortable in water, to the extent that I took a couple of lifesaving courses in my teens.
Thanks
Some autistic people don’t react well to anything out of their comfort zone. The water, lack of normal clothes, even the echoing sounds in some indoor pools can make them uncomfortable and create difficulty in applying skills they are being taught.
Yes, I get the comfort zone thing. As a high-functioning autistic I’ve inflicted this to various degrees on my wife for the last 30 years. But my request of @Spice_Weasel was for any actual factual data about this, or (again not intending to be snarky) is this educated speculation?
Just a start~as the grandparent of an autistic child I have read about this issue in many resource collections for caregivers of neurodivergent young people. It’s not speculation, it’s life or death.
Here are some stats:
In 2008, Danish researchers found that the mortality risk among the autism population is twice as high as the general population
In 2001, a California research team found elevated deaths in autism and attributed it to several causes, including seizures and accidents such as suffocation and drowning
In 2017, a study by Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health found that deaths in individuals with autism increased 700 percent in the past 16 years and were three times as likely as in the general population to be caused by injuries. It also found that children with autism are 160 times as likely to die from drowning as the general pediatric population
I don’t know all the reasons, but kids with autism tend to have very limited danger awareness. My son is four and has limited danger awareness, he will run out into the road without a second thought despite exhaustive conversations about safety rules and how important they are to follow. I basically have to assume he has the danger awareness of a toddler.
Autistic children are also more likely to elope, meaning they just take off without warning, sometimes getting out of the house without their parents’ awareness, so combine elopement + limited danger awareness with a backyard pool and you’ve got a recipe for trouble.
(My son only elopes when you try to put him in a crowded room/line. It’s a problem but not as big as a problem as worrying about him running out of the house.)
I’ve thought about it, but he has been making some progress, and he really enjoys the place he is at, and so do I, so I am hoping it works out. Despite his difficulty with some skills, he started out with a four-pack flotation device and can now swim with a two-pack unassisted. But they do have a very specific set of criteria before they move to the next level and I’m not sure that part of it really suits him.
Holy crap and thanks to both of you. That is really interesting. I’m level 1 (minimal support required/formerly asperger’s) such that it’s more of a giant nuisance and pain in the ass (now that I know). In the past I’ve made a lot of bad decisions and said a lot of bad things but nothing dangerous per se.
I suspect most of the kids who drown are level 2 or level 3 kids. My son is level 2 but it looks like there’s a good chance he will be level 1 down the road. I consider him a high risk for drowning. The challenge is that a lot of kids with autism also have gross motor issues, as my son does, that make it harder to learn to swim. So I guess all things considered he’s doing okay and I just have to be patient.
My god, I had no idea. I have no motor issues, thankfully. For almost all of my working life I was a bike commuter and I have good bike-handling skills. This is very enlightening.
And extremely vigilant. As I have no doubt you and his father are.
Our situation scares the beejesus out of us. Autism+ADHD, so very impulsive. In a school where the staff think they should discipline the autism and ADHD out of the child, unlike the family, who have failed to. This 7 year old is an eloper and there is an unfenced pond only a few blocks away from this school that this child would very much prefer to not be at. At home there are extra bolts and locks on every door and gate, as well as smart notices to parental watches and phones when those exits are opened and air tags attached to clothing if they are visiting in a new city or a crowded venue. The school seems to think if she ‘runs away’ and makes it a few blocks to that pond and something tragic happens, well, that’s a logical consequence for her misbehavior and bad choice.
As well as sensory issues - which might make many aspects of swimming unpleasant - the noise (especially if it’s an indoor pool). The cold. The sensation of water.
Fortunately, my son didn’t have any major problems along those lines. But I was reminded of a somewhat funny (?) story: he was a Boy Scout. In order to make Eagle Scout, he had badge requirements including one physical fitness one. I don’t recall all the details, but a swimming badge was the easiest one for him to do - but he had a lot of trouble doing (or at least, showing that he could do) some task or other.
One of the leaders tried to encourage him. “C’mon. What if your sister was in the water and needed you to rescue her? What would you do?”.
“Let her drown!” was the oh-so-loving reply. 
For what it’s worth, this WILL get better. Dweezil was much the same. In fact, our main rule regarding corporal punishment was that spankings ONLY happened when they did something life-threatening. Like his wandering away in a public spot. Note that by “spanking” I mean a scolding and one or at most two swats on the rear.
By the time he was 13 or so, and we had gotten the kids their first cell phones, we felt OK about letting him go into Washington DC on his own, as long as we had an idea of where he wanted to go (basically, the zoo, and/or Union Station). He asked US for rules / restrictions on such trips.
Another problem those with autism suffer, especially lower-functioning ones, is behavior that can result in law enforcement involvement, with potentially tragic outcomes. When Dweezil was 16ish, he went to the zoo on a day when the DC schools were in session. A policeman asked him why he wasn’t in school.
He calmly replied that our school district had a teacher workday (we live in the suburbs). But I can easily imagine him panicking when approached by a cop, and running, and being chased, and… still gives me the shakes, over a decade later.
Well, that is a bad school for the child.
Can they be taught/schooled elsewhere?
Good grief that upsets me.
So my son LOVES swimming, but he hates being splashed. He’s also spoiled, I don’t think he’s ever swum in an unheated pool yet. Whereas me, I grew up swimming in cold lakes!
Part of the reason I don’t want to take him somewhere else is because he has so much fun, and the people teaching him adore him. They are strong communicators. I recently gave them feedback on things to help him and I think they helped get him into that two-pack. Last session they put him in a one-pack, but only for a minute. You got to ease him into things, with lots of advance notice and very specific expectations, preferably with some kind of number attached. “In five minutes, we’re going to put on the one-pack. I just want you to wear it for one minute.” Then he’s pretty good.
That is horrifying. We’re lucky to have a good school district. But the more I learn the more it seems like it’s just the luck of the draw whether your special needs child is going to be supported or not.
You are right, all the way down to the building level. Some schools want to be inclusive and support the child. Others, in the same district only accept the child conforming and being the round peg in the round hole. If you’re different, not typical, you are ‘othered’ and devalued.
So true, and so sorry that this is the child’s situation.
Too many schools—and way too many adults—have a lot to answer for.