“There are no guarantees in life, except that everyone faces struggles. This is how we learn (and grow). Some face struggles from the moment they are born. They are the most special of all people, requiring the most care and compassion and reminding us that love is the sole purpose of life.”– Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
These are our Hidden Angels – teaching all of us life’s most valuable lessons.
Sensory Room Reveals New World for Students at Mobile School for the Deaf and Blind
“This room makes me feel like I’m in heaven!” Nathan, Student at Mobile School for the Deaf and Blind. Read full press release
Therapy in a multisensory environment, a room that soothes
Source Journal Sentinel
June 25, 2012 – Six-year-old John Burks sits near a padded white mat in a white-walled room, waiting for it to be transformed into his own private party space.
Streams of red simultaneously gush through a pair of ceiling-to-floor vertical bubble tubes on each side of the room. A pile of fiber optic strands turn red and another cluster of green strands hang from the wall. Geometric patterns twirl and spin into endless kaleidoscope shapes. A silver disco ball glitters in the air as “Mr. Blue Sky” plays in the background.
John sits mesmerized as the room bursts into color. Initially oblivious to the music, he starts bobbing his head once the track switches to “Strange Magic,” another song from the Electric Light Orchestra.
This is all part of therapy designed for children and adults with developmental and cognitive disabilities at the Milwaukee Center for Independence. This room, called a multisensory environment, is a controlled sensory input concept developed in the 1960s by American psychologists. They appropriately called rooms like this “sensory cafeterias” to help individuals with attention, memory, learning, sensory or physical disorders.
Some of the children who benefit from being in this controlled environment have autism, cognitive disabilities, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy or brain injuries.
“Participating in the multisensory environment gives them a way to engage in an environment and have control over the choices they’re making,” said Nancy Pickett, director of the center’s leisure, inclusion, fun and experiences, or L.I.F.E., program.
Pickett said many kids come in with overexcited systems, so giving them choices helps with brain organization.
The room provides auditory, tactile and visual stimulation in a safe, controlled environment, said Pickett, citing that the average body has 300 different touches in a 30-minute period, which may bombard or overload people with sensitive sensory systems.
Each day, about five to seven children and adults use the center’s therapy room, which opened in February. The average child who gets multisensory environment therapy is between 3 and 11 years old. Adults with developmental and physical disabilities between the ages of 18 and 60 also are part of the clientele.
“This is a stepping point to full-time employment,” said Pickett, pointing out that some adults, especially ones who grew up in institutions, use the therapy as they transition into a community.
Personalized sensory session
Sullivan “Sully” Ustruck, 5, who was diagnosed with a severe seizure disorder last fall and has had multiple brain surgeries, is wheeled into the room. His physical therapist helps him stand and walks him over to the bubble tubes.
His therapy sessions, usually three times a week, were interrupted by a recent seven-week hospitalization. He started multisensory environment therapy earlier this year with physical therapist Kathryn Cabral.
Sully does not use his right arm and left foot as much as his other limbs. Cabral is trying to get him to use the right arm, since he was right-handed before his diagnosis. Along with the multisensory environment he also is receiving physical, speech and neurological music therapy.
His mother, Melissa Ustruck, said his providers are good with communicating suggestions and notes about his therapy progress. “He’s a tough case. There’s no definitive reason why Sully is the way he is with all the seizures,” she said.
Cabral helps him walk back to the wheelchair. “This is his journey. This is what he has to do to get there.”
An exploratory environment
Kids can play with wheels and a cymbal attached to a board. Although this room is designed for self-direction, therapists push buttons for younger kids to slowly change their environment, coaching them to take risks in a safe place.
John’s occupational therapist, Sabrin Rizk, starts off with red and orange tones streaming into items so he feels alert after a nap. He’s being given therapy because of medical issues from earlier in his childhood.
The multisensory room is also known as the “Snoezelen room,” combining Dutch words meaning to explore and relax. Both of these terms play out in the room as individuals tend to explore their surroundings and wind down after being stimulated.
“Environments like this have shown to improve alertness and arousal and attention and in transferring skills he uses here to the classroom,” Rizk said.
Some children and adults need stimulation of their sense and awareness of body position and movement. They sit in a pool of balls for deep pressure, along with choosing a heated water bed and a vibrating mattress. John gravitates toward the pool of balls and playfully tosses one in the air.
Slowly, the brighter colors change from red to purple to more relaxing, soothing greens and blues.
Even the way in which things are turned on and off has a sense of organization, with a therapist slowly shutting everything off in reverse order.
Kris Barnekow, a professor in the department of occupational science and technology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said a therapist’s guidance over the room is a key piece of the intervention.
“When there’s an environment where the child can really explore and . . . it’s very child-directed and child-centered because they are seeking stimulation or finding stimulation suitable for their system, I think that’s a very good approach that can often be helpful for children,” said Barnekow. Cost vs. benefit
Multisensory environments can be a key part of behavioral and physiological therapy. For example, stimulating senses in a controlled fashion is sometimes the only way to increase the brain’s synaptic connections – the electrical impulses between nerve cells – for people with cognitive impairments, according to the Christopher Douglas Hidden Angel Foundation.
The foundation funded half of the $40,000 project, with donations coming from Don and Sallie Davis and CVS Caremark Charitable Trust.
Emily Levine, executive director of the Autism Society of Southeastern Wisconsin, said it isn’t clear whether multisensory environments are needed to achieve the goal of helping a child relax, as there are other options of stimulating the senses without spending a lot of money.
“There isn’t evidence that shows the Snoezelen room is better. Is there a lasting outcome to the child for the lasting experience, and that’s the part, it’s hard to say,” said Levine, pointing to the lack of empirical data. “Many occupational therapists use those and if they’re used appropriately, . . . it can be very calming and can get the child more ready to learn. It will calm them down or wake them up to the point of where they can participate better.”
The use of multisensory environments has been more popular in Europe and most of the research has been based on case and anecdotal studies, agreed Emilie Aubert, a professor in the physical therapy department at Marquette University.
“Because your sensory process is not something you can see and measure in a way, . . . it’s hard to set up really specific objectives to study them,” Aubert said. “Physical therapists and occupational therapists for 70 years have worked off, ‘If it works, then you do it again.’ ”
Multisensory room helps individuals with developmental disabilties
Treatment and Learning Centers ramps up occupational therapy department
April 25, 2012 Maryland – Serhan Stegman toddled to the bubble tubes, wrapped his arms around the long cylinders of water, changing colored light and rising bubbles.
Like a child on a carousel, he spun, his tiny arms the fulcrum for his spinning delight.
Serhan, 2, of Darnestown uses the new multisensory room at the Treatment and Learning Centers in Rockville twice per week to help him notice and process his environment.
“The equipment they have in there, it seems so simple,” said Ulgen Fideli, Serhan’s mother. “But it’s so important to him.”
Serhan has a pervasive development disorder that is not otherwise specified. The multisensory room — a space with lighting effects, bubble tubes and water and vibrating beds — helps promote neurological activity and encourages relaxation for children such as Serhan.Multisensory environments help encourage learning, cognitive and motor development, language skills and social interaction, said Brigid Baker, director of occupational therapy at the centers. The Treatment and Learning Centers is a nonprofit offering services, including child care and preschool programs, occupational therapy, testing and tutoring and outpatient services.
“It’s also great for our kids who have sensory processing difficulties, similar to those on the autism spectrum, to help them be in more control of their environment,” Baker said.
When a child pushes a green button, the lights in the bubble tubes turn green. It’s cause and effect, showing the children how one action can drive another.
The room cost $24,000 to build, with $10,800 of that funding coming from Christopher Douglas Hidden Angel Foundation, an organization promoting the use of multisensory environments to enrich the lives of people with emotional, cognitive and physical impairments. The other $13,200 came from donations from the Rockville Rotary Club Foundation, Wheaton-Silver Spring Kiwanis Club, CVS Pharmacy and private donors.
“I think people really saw the difference this would make for children in the community,” said Dr. Pat Ritter, the center’s executive director.
Such environments still are relatively unique; the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore — which has a Rockville campus — and Carroll Manor Elementary School in Adamstown feature similar rooms. Hidden Angels has helped fund 35 other rooms, Baker said.
The concept of multisensory environments began in Europe in the 1960s, and took off in the U.S. about 35 years ago, Baker said.
“Through the research, we know that it works,” Baker said. “But we need to know the empirical information of why it works.”
Mostly, the rooms serve to relax overstimulated children, said Linda Messbauer, an occupational therapist and founding member of the American Association of Multisensory Environments.
When used correctly with a therapist guiding the child’s activity, the room serves to empower and calm.
“The joy and pleasure chemistry cannot coexist with stress chemistry,” Messbauer said. “As one goes up, the other goes down.”
Children with autism, cerebral palsy, chronic pain syndrome and other developmental disabilities can benefit from such spaces.
Treatment and Learning Centers serve about 200 children in occupational therapy. About 75 percent of those children will use the room. Patient ages range from 1 to 13 years old.
Jennifer Natalya Fink and Sarah Sohn’s 5-year-old daughter, who was diagnosed with autism at 2, spends time in the new room as part of interactive group therapy. Her parents say she loves it.
“She took like a fish to water here,” said Sohn of Washington Grove. “I think that really speaks to their willingness to meet the kids where they’re at.”
Their daughter receives intensive speech and occupational therapy.
One in 88 children have been identified with an autism spectrum disorder, according to a 2012 community report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of September, 3,410 children were on the waiting list to receive state and federally funded therapeutic services, respite care and other support programs in their community and at home instead of an institution-type setting. Of those, 673 live in Montgomery County and 196 children receive those services. The waitlist is about eight years long.
“There’s a period of coming to terms with it and accepting,” Fink said of her daughter’s diagnosis. “She’s an individual. She’s a great kid and we try to focus on that.”
Fink and Sohn celebrate milestones, such as their daughter drinking from a cup without a straw and lid. And they note the child’s ability to key into the joyful dimensions of life.
“Social difficulty doesn’t mean you don’t have the capacity to be loving and warm,” Fink said. “They all do.”
abryant@gazette.net
Golf Tournament and Student Art Sale to benefit Regional School for the Deaf and Blind
Wednesday, 22 Feb 2012 – The Friends of the Regional School Golf Classic is happening March 3, 2012 at the Spring Hill College Golf Course in Mobile. Registration starts at 7:00am with a Continental Breakfast and there will be a shotgun start at 8:30am.
Lunch will be provided by Tony Cachere’s and will include Jambalaya, pork loin, salad, bread, and sausage po-boys. Beverages will be provided by Budweiser, Coca Cola, and Milo’s Tea. There will be a silent auction with sports memorabilia, hotel stays, dinner buffets, gift certificates, and artwork.
You can also support the school by purchasing artwork that was made by students. The Regional School for the Deaf and Blind was awarded a $15,000 grant for a sensory room from the Christopher Douglas Hidden Angel Foundation. The grant is received on the terms that they raise matching funds. You can purchase the art at True Midtown Kitchen or at the school. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact the school at 251-221-5454 or visit http://regional.mcs.schoolinsites.com.
The mission of the Southwest Alabama Regional School for the Deaf and Blind is to create a positive, supportive educational environment that provides opportunities for sensory impaired students to reach individual potential in the areas of academics, independence, responsibility and social competence.
This goal will be accomplished through the implementation of appropriate curricula, utilizing specialized communication and equipment, directed by a cooperative, dedicated, specially trained faculty and staff supported by parents and the community.
Spring Hill College Golf Course
4000 Dauphin Street
Mobile, AL 36608
True Midtown Kitchen
1104 Dauphin Street
Mobile, AL 36604
(251) 434-2002
Milwaukee Center of Independence
MCFI – Milwaukee Center of Independence
Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA
2012
TLC – The Treatment and Learning Center
TLC – The Treatment and Learning Center
Rockville, Maryland USA
2012
New Research
The Hidden Angel Foundation is proud to support and contribute to the research and work being done around the use of Multi Sensory Stimulation for premature infants within the Neonatal Research Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Read More
M.O.R.G.A.N. Project
Accounting and Advisory firm supports the Christopher Douglas Hidden Angel Foundation who builds two new MSEs in Baycrest
Baycrest Hospital
Baycrest Hospital
Toronto ON, Canada
2011
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