Multisensory Room

As part of its services for adults with developmental disabilities, Goodwill Industries of the Conemaugh Valley (GICV) provides the Multisensory Room, which is designed to deliver controlled multisensory intervention therapy to stimulate awareness and increase positive behaviors.
 
Adopted in part from the Snoezelen concept developed by Dutch therapists Al Verheual and Jan Hulsegge, the Multisensory Room enables adults with disabilities or other limiting conditions to experience gentle stimulation of the primary senses without the need for intellectual reasoning.  Participants get to experience self-control, autonomous discovery, and exploration-achievements that are designed to enhance self-esteem and reduce tension to enable them to overcome inhibitions.  Free from the expectations of others and away from the pressures of directed care, they recuperate and relax.
 
The environment stimulates the primary senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell through the use of lighting effects, tactile surfaces, meditative music, and the aroma of relaxing essential oils.
 
Example benefits include:

• Stimulation of senses from patterns on the wall, soothing music, vibrating recliner, and bubble tube that responds to sound.
  
  

• Cause-and-effect as a participant can speak, clap his/her hands, blow a whistle, or pound a drum in order to change colors of the bubble tube.
  
  

• Eye-hand coordination as a participant manipulates switches on small lamps that produce visual stimuli such as a tornado effect, beads rolling down a spiral, or a revolving picture lamp.
  
  

• Control over one's environment as the participant has the ability to make choices as to how much stimuli he/she is comfortable with.
  
  

• Stimulation of vocabulary and interaction between participant and staff to promote positive work experiences.

For more information on GICV's Multisensory Room, contact Sabrina Steele at (814) 539-9857, ext. 231 or ssteele@goodwilljohnstown.org.
 

Eligibility:  Open

Applicants must not have Epilepsy.  The program benefits those who have developmental disabilities, Autism, emotional problems, or traumatic brain injury.

Funded by fee for service or under enrollment of one of GICV’s applicable programs.

Coverage area by county:  Cambria