Escambia Westgate's Snoezelen Facility

SNOEZELEN®MSEs have been dazzling children with special needs for 20 years!

as featured in TherapyTimes.com

When you have a big project in mind and you’re in danger of being overwhelmed, where do you start? If you’re Marilyn Sandler, CCC-SLP, of Stockton Elementary School in Chicago, you begin by going “straight to the top.” This is what Sandler did in 2006 when she embarked on a quest to bring a Snoezelen® multi-sensory environment to Stockton.

Snoezelen – pronounced “SNOOZE-a-lin” – incorporates a specialized selection of sensory equipment and materials that may help clients adapt their responses to sensory stimulation and to advance education and therapy goals. Designed to offer individuals with special needs and challenging conditions the opportunity to exercise choice through action, Snoezelen allows clients to enjoy a wide range of sensory experiences – either passively or actively – that enhance therapy, learning, and relaxation.

Although she didn’t know it at the time, the project she undertook required 2 years for completion and a large amount of money, but Sandler says, “I knew I could do it. I didn’t know how, but I knew I could.” She was convinced that the benefits of Snoezelen would far outweigh the practical difficulties of making this dream a reality. With determination and conviction, she set out to achieve her very special goal.

Stockton Elementary School enrolls approximately 500 students, and is Chicago’s northernmost receiving school for early childhood students with special needs. With both an early childhood special education program for ages 3 to 6 and special education classes for students ages 7 to 12, Stockton caters to about 100 students with a range of special needs, including autism, Down’s syndrome, developmental and cognitive delay, emotional and behavioral problems, and hearing impairment.

Sandler, a speech therapist at Stockton since 1989, describes the school as a friendly place with a great student population and supportive parents, but just a few years ago she became convinced that the school could become an even better place for both students and teachers by creating its own Snoezelen room and exposing children to regular Snoezelen sessions.

Sandler first became interested in Snoezelen while pursuing a grant opportunity from the Chicago Foundation for Education and Fund for Teachers®. She and her husband had decided to apply as a team to go to Israel, so Sandler began researching programs in Israel for students with autism. The word “Snoezelen” kept showing up in her research, and Sandler soon became intrigued and began focusing more on this therapy she had never heard of. Soon she decided to write Snoezelen into her grant proposal, and when she and her husband received the grant, she traveled to a facility just outside of Tel Aviv. There, she met with occupational therapist Michelle Shapiro, saw Snoezelen in action, and became determined to introduce it to her students when she returned to Chicago.

While Sandler had the inspiration and drive to bring Snoezelen to Stockton, she was less certain of the practical means of pursuing her vision. However, she was determined to try, and the principal of Stockton, Jill Besenjak, agreed to set aside a room for the project. With an adequate space ensured, Sandler jumped into the next phase of her quest, raising the $100,000 she had set as her goal for making an exceptional Snoezelen room at Stockton School a reality.

A Snoezelen consultant at FlagHouse, Inc., the exclusive U.S. distributor of Snoezelen equipment, says that she originally quoted Sandler a typical figure of $40,000 for a complete Snoezelen room, but Sandler was prepared to go much further in her fundraising efforts. In fact, she says she told the FlagHouse representative, “I want the best Snoezelen room in the country. I’m not kidding.”

With this goal in mind, Sandler took her own advice and went “straight to the top,” preparing a proposal that she planned to present to then-CEO of Chicago Public Schools (now Secretary of Education) Arne Duncan at a ceremony honoring the recipients of the Chicago Foundation for Education and Fund for Teachers® grant that had made her trip to Israel possible. Sandler, with the figure of $100,000 in mind, approached Duncan after his speech and presented him with the proposal. Duncan impressed Sandler by already being familiar with Snoezelen. He looked over the proposal and told her that he would match any funding she could come up with.

Duncan’s promise gave Sandler new inspiration, and she then approached Howard Nochunson, executive director of the Washington Square Health Foundation, which was already providing assistance for an Easter Seals Snoezelen project in Chicago. With the help of Washington Square Health Foundation, Chicago Public Schools, and a few private donors, Sandler ultimately raised $161,000, a sum that exceeded her original goal. Finally, in October 2008, the classroom reserved for the Snoezelen project could begin its transformation. The extra funds that Sandler was able to raise were instrumental in making Stockton School’s Snoezelen room a model for sensory therapy.

The room’s design came together through the combined efforts of Sandler, Carolyn Jackson, a Snoezelen consultant from FlagHouse, Inc., and Linda Messbauer, MA, OTR/L, a New York-based occupational therapist with extensive Snoezelen experience, allowing for optimal attention to both aesthetics and functionality. Sandler’s impressive attention to detail and ample budget resulted in a room that is not only pleasing to the senses, but also full of practical customizations such as individual electrical switches for each piece of equipment, dimmers for all the lights, and the ability to operate all equipment by remote control.

Before its completion in March 2009 and grand opening the following May, the Stockton School Snoezelen project would move through several phases, including room design, selection of equipment, construction and installation, and training for the Stockton teachers and therapists who would use the room with their students. Sandler found herself acting as the “construction manager,” concerned with every detail of the room, from carpeting to paint to lighting and electrical outlets. When asked if after all this effort the Snoezelen room is living up to her expectations, Sandler answers without hesitation, “Absolutely. The kids just love it.”

According to Sandler, the results they are seeing have exceeded even her highest expectations: passive students begin to take an active role in exploring their environment, hyperactive children are able to relax and calm down, students are able to learn about cause and effect, and some students who were previously nonverbal have actually begun to speak in the Snoezelen room.

One little girl, whom Sandler describes as a “selective mute,” refused to speak at school; the staff at Stockton had never heard her say a word. One day during a Snoezelen session, she suddenly grabbed the microphone attached to a piece of equipment that measures and visually reflects sound production, and began to sing! Sandler explains that students “feel so free in there that they use more language.” While in the Snoezelen room, these children are happy, secure, calm, and engaged with their environment.

The positive results are not limited to the time that the students spend in Stockton’s Snoezelen room either. According to Sandler, approximately 1 year after introducing Snoezelen into the school, she and the other teachers are beginning to see a carryover in the behavior of their students with special needs after sessions in the room. One of the results Sandler had hoped to see when she first decided to develop a Snoezelen room was an improvement in students’ attention spans.

Now that students have been exposed and become accustomed to this multisensory environment, their attention spans have improved. In addition, she says the children have learned the routine surrounding their Snoezelen sessions, so they know to take their shoes off before they enter the room, and they are aware that the dimming or brightening of the lights in the room indicates the beginning or end of the session.

For many students with special needs, simply learning and appropriately responding to this routine is a big deal. Perhaps an even more impressive indicator of the impact Snoezelen is having on the students at Stockton is that the children have begun to ask for sessions in their special room. Many nonverbal students, including some of those with autism, use a picture exchange communication system (PECS), in which a picture can be used in place of speech. Classrooms for students with special needs at Stockton are equipped with Snoezelen pictures, which kids will show to their teachers in order to request time in the Snoezelen room.

Students with special needs aren’t the only ones who take pleasure in Stockton’s Snoezelen environment. Sandler reveals that teachers and parents who have experienced its relaxing effects enjoy their time there. In order to extend the benefits of Snoezelen even further, the school has developed a system of “peer buddies,” in which students from the regular education program are paired with students in the special education programs. During peer buddy sessions in the Snoezelen room, the kids can enjoy the equipment and environment together and strengthen their bonds.

Students have fun with all of the features of the room, but in particular, Sandler says that the children love the ball pit that occupies one corner of the room, the interactive bubble tubes, and the “igloo” enclosure that she specially requested. The only problem they are having, in fact, is finding enough time in the day to give the students the time they would like to have for exploring and learning in the Snoezelen environment.

“Scheduling is the one tricky thing,” Sandler says, since Snoezelen sessions require supervision and have to be arranged around the teachers’ schedules. Currently, students attend sessions in small groups about once a week, often during occupational therapy or speech therapy periods. Occasionally, members of the staff will take a few of the more hyperactive students into the Snoezelen room for a short session before classes start in order to help them calm down and prepare for the school day.

Scheduling is handled on an individual basis according to students’ varying needs. The staff tries to ensure that some students, such as those with autism, have more frequent Snoezelen sessions, since they tend to enjoy the greatest benefits from this environment where they can control sensory input and learn about cause and effect. While the current schedule is already allowing the staff at Stockton to see amazing results in the students who are exposed to Snoezelen, Sandler says that one of their goals for the future is to improve the scheduling so that students can use the room even more often.

Other plans for the future include conducting a parent meeting in the Snoezelen room so that more of the parents of students in the special education program can see and understand the type of therapy their children are experiencing there; installing a tactile art project in the hallway outside of the Snoezelen room in order to extend the sensory experience; and perhaps having Duncan come to Stockton School to see the completed project that he helped make possible.

Sandler’s journey, from her first inspiration in a Snoezelen room in Israel to her current efforts to devise a scheduling system that allows students at Stockton School maximum access to Snoezelen therapy, has been a long one. But her conviction and resolve have never wavered. Despite the inherent challenges of this project, by steadily pursuing her goals and sharing her belief in the benefits to be gained from the multisensory environment, Sandler succeeded in bringing Snoezelen to Stockton School, where in its first year it has already had a positive impact on students with special needs.

In the Snoezelen room, “the kids are happy,” says Sandler. And when the students are happy, calm, secure, and relaxed, learning can take place.