For The Kids : SPECIAL OLYMPICS : In the Swim : The games will challenge 8-year-old Shannon Dutter’s independence as well as her athletic skills.

Shannon Dutter’s backstroke is a labor of love. Born with Down’s syndrome, the 8-year-old carefully rotates each arm over her head as her sturdy body pushes slowly toward the end of the pool.

On this day, the 25-yard swim from one end of the pool to the other takes her 111 seconds. It’s not her best time, but after a 45-minute workout, she’s tired.

Shannon, who lives with her family in Camarillo, is training for the California Special Olympics Summer Games in Los Angeles June 19-21. She is among 66 Ventura County athletes--adults and children--chosen to compete.

Shannon is the youngest in the group. Although she likes gymnastics and track and field sports, at the games she will compete in the 25-yard backstroke and the 25-yard freestyle events. To get ready, she swims twice a week at the YMCA in Ventura.

“She wants to go all the time,” said Carri Dutter, her mother. “She’s pretty excited about the games.”

The three-day competition will not only test Shannon’s swimming skills but will also challenge her independence. She will be chaperoned by her coach, Veronica O’Day, and sleep in a dormitory with other competitors, much like the regular Olympic athletes. Her parents will see her only when she competes.

Despite her mental retardation, Shannon functions at a high level, her mother said. She attends special education classes in public school, and she tests at the kindergarten/first grade level. She is learning to read and do math, and she knows all about homework.

She is not shy about speaking, but her speech is hard to understand. Her 6-year-old brother, Blake, affectionately acts as her protector and interpreter.

Shannon was only 6 weeks old when her mother took her to infant stimulation classes at a swimming pool. She has been swimming ever since--first in private lessons and then group lessons.

“She had no fear of the water,” Carri Dutter said. That gave her parents all the more reason to make sure that she could handle herself in the water.

“We can put her in the pool and trust her,” said Mike Dutter, her father. “She can dive to the bottom and swim laps.”

Shannon swims about as well as her brother. “It’s just a little harder for her to catch on,” he said. O’Day must break down a swimming stroke into segments and generally teach at a slower pace.

But swimming is a sport that adapts to a handicap, Mike Dutter said. “Water is a great equalizer.”

Children born with Down’s syndrome usually have a soft body structure with weak muscle tone, he said. But Shannon is firm, thanks to the family’s interest in physical activity.

At the pool, she inserts custom-made protective plugs in her ears before pulling her green bathing cap on over her ponytail. Down’s children are born with small ear canals that often require tubes to be surgically inserted to prevent infection, her father said. The plugs protect the tubes in Shannon’s ears.

Once in the water, Shannon’s disabilities vanish. She has come a long way since September when O’Day began coaching her. She has since mastered breathing to the side during the crawl stroke, and her endurance has improved.

O’Day has no trouble keeping her focused on lap swimming for 45 minutes. She rewards Shannon and others in her class with 15 minutes of playtime in the YMCA’s warm pool after the training session.

O’Day is among more than 100 volunteer coaches certified by the Special Olympics to work with children and adults at 70 training sites throughout Ventura County. They choose competitors for the games, not necessarily on their skills, but often on their improvement or sportsmanship. In Shannon’s case, it was a combination of factors.

“Shannon is real personable,” O’Day said. “She swims well for her age and there are not going to be a lot of young swimmers in Los Angeles. Her parents are very supportive, and I thought it would be nice to see them rewarded.”