Strokes easier than syllables for National Para Swimming champ

CHENNAI: “Amma, we got the medals, no?” says Ishaan S to his mother, Sharmila A, as they wrap up the practice session for the day. “I had to trick him with these medals into coming here. He was refusing to come because it’s a Sunday,” Sharmila tells with a bright yet nervous smile.

Ishaan goes on to show his five medals – four gold and one silver – that he won as a para swimmer in the past 8 months. “I have four gold, ah?” he asks his mom again as he proceeds to hold them up for the camera.

The 13-year-old para swimmer from Koyambedu is a gold medallist at the 26th Junior and Sub-Junior National Para Swimming Championship 2026 in Bengaluru, which was held in June this year. He won medals in Butterfly Fly 100 m, Backstroke 100 m, and Individual Medley 100m in the S14 category.

Ishaan was diagnosed with Autism, ADHD, Intellectual Disability, and other developmental challenges when he was about a year-and-a-half old.

Ishaan’s laps with swimming began as his mother was looking to find activities that could help him learn other skills. Explaining how swimming happened, she says that they stumbled into the sport six years ago.

“We were trying different kinds of activities that would help him with his oral skills, motor skills, balance, and eye contact. We tried a lot of sports, and swimming was one of them. We got him into yoga and meditation,” she recalls.

Ishaan found himself much more at ease underwater than on land. Sharmila began learning speech therapy from the course materials to help her son learn language better. She read through hundreds of pages and made Ishaan do countless activities.

“I have pictures of everything. Let’s say jumping. I have a picture book of jumps and also of him jumping. So, I can show him what jumping is. I’ll show him these until he understands what a jump is and he can do it when instructed to,” she says. Ishaan began speaking when he was 9.

“I have written down close to 2,000 words and 5,000 phrases and sentences he should be learning for talking regularly,” she adds. “I used to paint my face around my eyes, put stickers around them so he could look into my eye, just to draw his attention.”

While she could only train him in English, it was his swimming coaches who helped him learn Tamil better. “They talk to him like every other kid. They tell him to do this, do that in colloquial Tamil that Ishaan slowly picked up,” notes Sharmila.

SDAT’s Disability Coach Sathish Kumar, under whom Ishaan trains in Shenoy Nagar, says that Ishaan’s speech and eye contact got better when he began swimming. “They came to me for better coordination. It is only after they got better that we realised Ishaan could be trained for the sport, and we started getting him to competitions,” says Sathish.

Ishaan’s first national competition was in Hyderabad in November 2025. He was enrolled in all three categories. However, when the whistle blew at the Backstroke competition, his first-ever attempt there, he did not jump. Why? “He refused to jump. It was a new environment,” recalls Sharmila. “Every day is different for a child with autism. They almost never what you expect them to do.”

After much coaxing from his teammates and coach, he agreed, and went on win silver and gold medals in the S-14 category.

Coaching children with disabilities is very different from coaching able-bodied kids,” says Satish. Concurring with him was assistant coach C Gopi who adds: “Because Ishaan is verbal and can hear and understand instructions, there is not much difference. He has been training professionally for the last 2.5 years.”

All of Sharmila’s days are spent keeping Ishaan occupied with different tasks, as he also has ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). “Even now, after this, we’ll eat somewhere new and do a different task,” she says. Sharmila works remotely at night, while spending her daytime taking care of her son. She only started working after Ishaan turned 8.

Ishaan is being homeschooled due to his learning disabilities and also cases of bullying at school. “We enrolled him in a school, but children are not sensitised. There have been instances of children shifting blame to Ishaan if they do something wrong. Hitting or biting him and threatening him not to tell us,” she explains.

Moreover, Ishaan cannot grasp the syllabus for a Class 9 student. “He can only read or write a word at a time, so it is pointless to do a regular school,” she says.

Her home phone is filled with books, sheets, objects that work as cues for Ishaan to learn. From a box and a ball picture to a box and a ball in real life, every day, every activity is a learning tool.

While schooling has been at home, another difficult lap is socialising. “It took us three years to get comfortable with taking a bus. Passengers would be irritated. I’ve even gotten down midway because Ishaan would get triggered. But slowly, we learnt. Because it is essential,” she says. When making friends, Sharmila first becomes the kid’s friend. She hand-picks people who are sensitive to Ishaan and his abilities. She maintains a diary of his symptoms, things he has to learn, from saying a word to doing a task. Each thing gets struck off when Ishaan learns them.

Teaching Ishaan is a task that requires much patience. Every small task could take years to learn, remember, and then repeat it properly. “Everything is going to take time. Learning how to squat took him five years. To hold a soap and bathe by himself is going to take a few years. Every day is a little progress. We have come a long way, though,” smiles the proud mother. “Every small step forward has been only possible because of my family, swimming coaches, psychiatrists, paediatricians and doctors who helped me along the way.”

Currently, Ishaan is preparing to swim from Dhanushkodi to Thalaimannar in Sri Lanka this September. “We’ve been practising every day in Kovalam for that. So far, he has completed 20 km swimming in the sea. Now from on, it’ll be 30,” she says.

As Ishaan glides through life with swimming, Sharmila’s goal is to make Ishaan capable of handling himself without anyone’s support each day. “If he has to get a biscuit packet, I want him to learn to pay for it, see the price and get the change. Also to remember that he cannot pick it up by himself and just walk off,” she says.

For her, the greatest victory is not his medals but how her child, who everyone thought would never speak, is now able to have a conversation while being a national champion.