Research proves that 1 year olds can learn the roll-to-float survival response.
Dear Friends of CAST,
As a team, we have been overwhelmed by your support of our mission to save lives. In 2024, CAST had the honor of being involved in funding a toddler water competency research study with the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The study, led by Dr. David Schwebel and Anna Johnston was recently published in Injury Prevention!
It would mean everything to me if you would take the time to read the below words, courageously shared by our friend and partner in the research effort, Nicole Hughes.
“When Lily, Reese, and Levi were little, I counted their heads in the rearview mirror. 1, 2, 3: my world lined up in car seats.
After we lost Levi in June 2018, my counting stopped at: 1, 2.
The silence hit louder than any cry. Grief isn’t loud; it’s the quiet where someone used to be.
Just like drowning: It’s the silence that is deadly.
Drowning is the #1 cause of death for kids 1-4. If I had known the truth about drowning (non-swim time, non-swim time), if the beach house door was deadbolted, if Levi had known how to roll over and float, he would still be here.
I was so close. Levi, I was right there. We just needed one minute.
And now I know that self-rescue lessons could have given him that minute. When the other layers failed, and he somehow reached the pool alone that Sunday evening, if he had known how to roll over and float, he would have had a chance. Crying, instead of silence.
For years, this skill has been debated by the medical community: Are one year olds capable?
Self-rescue swim instructors, parents, and advocates have been banging at the doors of policy makers for decades, insisting that self-rescue lessons can be part of a multi-layered drowning prevention approach. Since the 1990s, the consistent refrain has been that the medical world needed peer-reviewed data. Policy needed proof.
Without it, the truth lived only in the water, in the stories of toddlers who learned to float and in the hands of instructors whose steady courage changed the trajectory of children’s lives.
Now, because of God’s graces: love, grief, community; the unshakable goodness and unwavering support of everyone at CAST; our gold-standard researchers, Dr. David Schwebel and Anna Johnston, whose open minds and commitment to scientific integrity made this possible; the UAB Safety Lab; parents who buried children: research is here.
“Our research offers compelling evidence to suggest most 1-year-old children have cognitive and physical developmental capacity to learn to float safely for at least 3 min, while fully clothed and without adult support.”
When I saw the published article for the first time, as I have so often in this journey, I felt them all: our babies and toddlers, lives taken far too early. I felt their presence, their witnessing.
This is theirs. This is for them.
Change will not come overnight. But this research opens the door for funding, implementation, policy shift, honest conversations, and for life saving change.
This is not the finish line. This is the starting gun.
Will you help us carry this forward? Will you take this proof, this heartbreak, this hope, and help us run like hell to save the next child? Will you share this with pediatricians, hospitals, with anyone involved in child safety?
It bears repeating, again and again: thank you. So many of you saw a mom in pain and ran to join me over the last 7 years. I can’t think of it without immediately being on the brink of tears.
I have learned one of the most important truths in life: we survive by carrying one another. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to put back into the world the beauty of the shared humanity I’ve experienced.
Now, let’s keep fighting to save these babies.”
Written By: Nicole Hughes
It has been a privilege to share this positive research news with donors, supporters, instructors, families and medial professionals over the last few months.
When reflecting on how this was made possible, I am always fortunate to be able to say, “so many people helped.”
A big CAST focus for 2026 is to ensure the UAB research study continues to be widely shared.
A huge thank you to our friends at National Drowning Prevention Alliance (NDPA), Infant Swimming Resource (ISR) and US National Water Safety Action Plan (USNWSAP) for sharing the study with their networks already.
Please help us build momentum to share this new information that will surely safeguard more children. See below for ways to help and for a link to the official research study. And thank you for helping us save lives!
With great appreciation,
Liz & The CAST Team
Introduce CAST to Pediatricians & Change Makers
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Read & Share Nicole’s Words on FB
Research participants continuing their lessons at CAST!
At age 2, they are back to learn the swim float swim sequence.
Fund Future Research & CAST Scholarships
We are grateful to the Hughes family for courageously advocating for awareness, access, research and hope.