Multisensory areas provide a calming and relaxing environment as well as learning opportunities for all children, not just those with special needs. So try to visit a multisensory room or make your own as part of your project on light and dark.
Settings that cater specifically for children with multiple disabilities are increasingly fortunate enough to have multisensory rooms. These rooms are distraction-free, often 'whited out', areas that might include equipment such as:
* a variety of different lighting equipment including fibre-optic tubes, spotlights, bubble tubes, mirage-effect projectors, fluorescent materials and ultraviolet lights
* mirror balls
* sound/light panels
* olfactory boxes
* switches to turn on the equipment by voice or hand control.
Such equipment is quite sophisticated but it may be possible for mainstream settings to establish relationships with special needs settings to also benefit from the provision.
DIY sensory room
It is also perfectly possible for mainstream, or less well-funded, settings to use everyday resources to devise their own multisensory area, to draw on the good practice of special needs settings and to provide similar experiences for all children.
To set up a multisensory area:
* White out a small room, storeroom or even just a corner of a room with white blinds or fabric, whiteboard or thick foil.
* Stock it with items such as shiny fabrics, silver survival blankets, bubblewrap, fairy lights, bells and 'tinkly' artefacts, battery-powered pushlights, coloured bulbs and kitchen foil. (See Resources, pages 18-19.) * Check out local hardware and lighting stores for 'bubble tubes' and fibre-optic light sprays and ropes.
* Dig any old projectors and slides out of the cupboard - they are probably rarely used now that overhead projectors are more common.
* Use foil to break the beams of light from hand-held torches as you project the light on to the wall.
* Seek out children's torches that come with different coloured lenses or insets that can be projected on to the wall.
Similarly, an area tented in black fabric can be decorated with ultraviolet lights, fluorescent strips or wall mounts - stars and rocket shapes, for example, are available cheaply in toy stores.
