Lights, sounds settle students’ nerves inside multi-sensory room at N.J. school (VIDEO) – NJ.com

Imagine resting comfortably on a padded bench with pillows. The room is bathed in soft but vibrant light in colors of your choosing. Projected pinpoint starlights slowly travel across every interior surface.

Clear floor-to-ceiling tubes filled with hypnotically bubbling colored liquid give off a soft hum and tranquil glow.

Where is this placid place? Believe it or not, it’s in a school.

The Phoenix Center, in Nutley, is a private school that serves students ages 5-21 who are on the autism spectrum, or have multiple behavioral and intellectual disabilities.

Julie Mower has been the school’s executive director for 28 years. “One of the things that The Phoenix Center does is concentrate on providing the highest level of technology that’s available… to provide that depth of experience,” she said.

“And this MSE (Multi-Sensory Environment) represents just that.”

Occupational Therapist Shira Marks works with a student named Gavin who is very reserved. Marks’ training helps her read signals in his behaviors, eye movements and breathing rate which she says show signs of some anxiety or being overwhelmed.

When that happens, she brings him to the MSE “to provide him with a space that was just calming, and provide him with a space where there were no demands, and that would allow him to enjoy his space and not have to be hyper-vigilant.”

In this session, Gavin reclined peacefully on the padded bench with bundles of green fiber-optic lights draped over his face and body, surrounded by soft sounds.

“What was fascinating about Gavin when he first started is he didn’t even know how to be comfortable being calm,” Marks said.

Speech Therapist Jena Hinz said many of the students at the Phoenix Center “communicate in a lot of different ways and this includes gestures, pictures, words. A lot of our students use augmentative and alternative communication to express their wants and needs every day.”

Her student Ernie uses a computer tablet, tapping boxes displaying pictures or words to construct sentences that the computer vocalizes as to what his preferences are for his time in the MSE.

“I feel that this environment is just very motivating for him and really gives him a lot of opportunities to engage with us,” Hinz said.

Mary Inhoffer is a physical therapist at Phoenix and coordinator of the Multi-Sensory Environment. She was working alongside Hinz in a co-treat session with Ernie. “They (students) can pick the colors, they can pick the bubble tube, they can pick the fiber-optic,” she said.

“So we allow them to explore these different sensory modalities and figure out which they prefer. Having done that, every child has a unique and varied experience in this room and the goal is when they walk out the door to be calm, alert and ready to learn.”

The concept of the multi-sensory environment — also known as Snoezelen — is traced back to two therapists from the Netherlands, Jan Hulsegge and Ad Verheul. The moniker came from the combination of the Dutch words “snuffelen” which means to seek and explore and and “doezelen” meaning to relax, according to the Snoezelen website.

During a session, student Graham pressed buttons on a console changing the colors in the room, stating the names of each color as he did so.

When Inhoffer asked him how he felt, Graham thought about it for a moment and answered in one word, “Relaxed.” He nodded his head, and agreed with Inhoffer that when he walks out the door, he still feels the positive effects of his time in the MSE.

“How does that help you?” asked Inhoffer. Graham put his head back on the pillow that was supporting him and said slowly, “Nice and easy.”

Inhoffer said she envisions that in a perfect world, every child would have access to a Multi-Sensory Environment.

“I think it’s a very powerful tool, very powerful for learning, very powerful for behavior,” she said.

Initially, The Phoenix Center was awarded a grant in July of 2013 from Seton Hall University’s School of Health and Medical Sciences for construction of the room and included training by an MSE specialist.

Subsequently, according to Executive Director Mower, a sizable donation from a current student’s family provided additional funding to update, repair and purchase new sensory modalities to enhance the existing MSE.

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Michael Mancuso may be reached at mmancuso@njadvancemedia.com