Background: There is an important discrepancy between parental perception of a child's aquatic competence and their actual ability. This poses a risk, as parental supervision of the water depends heavily on perceived competence. Therefore, evaluating swimming progress is essential to inform parents of actual aquatic competence. Aim: To present the Erbaugh Scale for assessing 3-to-6-year-olds' real aquatic competence during swimming lessons. Methods: The Erbaugh Scale is an ordinal scale composed of six tasks that consider the child's level of autonomy in the water and the distance covered. The tasks are Entry: Jump tasks, Locomotion: Tasks in the prone position; Locomotion: Tasks in the supine position; Locomotion: Leg movement; Diving Tasks (from the pool's edge); and Tasks of searching for objects at the bottom of the pool (Erbaugh, 1981). Following translation into Portuguese by four professionals, the scale's reliability and validity were assessed (content, internal structure, and criterion validity via independent 3-meter displacement). Criterion validity was established based on the children's ability to achieve independent 3-meter displacement. Among the 368 children, 27 children who were beginners in swimming lessons were evaluated monthly until they achieved independent displacement in the aquatic environment. The study followed the Declaration of Helsinki under ethics approval 2.532.306. Results: The Erbaugh Scale proved to be valid and reliable for application in children in the context of teaching swimming. Regarding water safety, the instrument proved to be able to predict future behaviour based on the result obtained in the first assessment. Although the correlation was moderate (-0.56), it was statistically significant (p=0.002), that is, the higher the initial assessment result, the sooner the children acquired the in-water independent displacement. Conclusions: Providing accurate competence data, the Erbaugh Scale guides appropriate parental supervision. Future work should cross-reference scale outcomes with parental self-reports of child competence.
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