Rockingham County, Virginia Case Research
Because the father or mother of an autistic son, Leila Longcor is aware of what it’s prefer to have her baby soften down in public as a result of he’s overstimulated.
She additionally is aware of from expertise how useful it may be to have entry to a secure and calming sensory setting the place kids can go to chill out, decompress, and get their feelings below management.
So when the Rockingham County, Virginia, Parks and Recreation Division was constructing a brand new leisure middle to host space observe meets, senior bingo nights, and different neighborhood occasions, Longcor a member of the county Board of Supervisors—prompt that the brand new constructing embrace a Snoezelen multisensory setting for this very objective.
Longcor’s son acquired therapy at a hospital with a Snoezelen sensory room twice every week as a baby.
“It could utterly calm all of his heightened senses,” she recalled. “It was like flipping a change, and he might return to being himself as a substitute of being overstimulated. I assumed: What a present it will be to supply this type of expertise for our county’s particular wants kids and their households.”
County officers labored with Faculty Specialty to design, furnish, and equip a singular sensory setting that’s now utilized by special-education college students from native colleges, in addition to households with kids who want a sensory break.
“Our households find it irresistible,” Longcor mentioned. “The quantity of sheer gratefulness I’ve heard has been overwhelming.”
How does the house perform?
The rec middle’s authentic design didn’t embrace a sensory room. However when Longcor prompt including this characteristic, county staff agreed it was a good suggestion—and an area that originally was speculated to be a storage space was designated as a sensory room as a substitute.
Beneath the course of Deputy County Administrator Trish Davidson, Parks and Recreation Director Kirby Dean and Deputy Director Marco Knorr visited different sensory rooms across the state to get concepts for the house, together with the sensory room at James Madison College. To create their very own sensory room, they partnered with Faculty Specialty and its Initiatives By Design staff, which has intensive expertise in designing and furnishing Snoezelen multisensory environments for shoppers in a variety of industries.
Sometimes that includes mild lighting, soothing sounds, and calming textures, Snoezelen rooms are enjoyable areas that assist cut back nervousness, however additionally they have interaction and stimulate customers with sensory inputs designed to advertise independence by giving customers a way of management over their setting.
Faculty Specialty Class Account Supervisor Alessandra Pucci labored with county leaders to design an setting that was well-suited to their wants.
The room contains parts to have interaction senses corresponding to sight, listening to, and contact, in addition to vestibular and proprioceptive inputs for serving to kids transfer round, regulate their steadiness, and develop into conscious of their our bodies.
As an illustration, there are bubble tubes, a platform swing, strain rollers, a suspended lounge chair with fiber optic lights, a spin board that enables kids to spin round, a rocking bowl for them to take a seat inside and rock forwards and backwards, gel flooring tiles that reply when kids contact them, and an interactive projector that initiatives photos onto the ground for kids to work together with.
“Alessandra was very artistic and had numerous nice concepts,” Davidson mentioned. “She was there with us throughout to the room’s completion.” A singular facet of the house is that it’s designed to resemble a forest setting. The bubble tubes are embedded in what seem like tree trunks, and the strain rollers seem like logs. There’s a campfire space, and a backdrop shows a waterfall picture.
“We’re within the Shenandoah Valley, which is likely one of the most picturesque areas of the world,” Dean mentioned. “We needed one thing that mirrored our surroundings. While you stroll in, you are feeling such as you’re within the Shenandoah forest.”
One thing to be pleased with.
The brand new rec middle opened in January 2025, however the sensory room didn’t formally open to the general public till the autumn.
Already, the room has been extraordinarily nicely acquired—and it’s getting numerous use as nicely. Native colleges are bringing special-needs college students throughout the college day, and fogeys can signal as much as reserve the house for his or her kids when it’s not in any other case occupied.
“Youngsters like to take a seat and work together with the projected photos on the ground,” Dean mentioned, “and somebody at all times appears to be sitting within the lounge chair.”
Not solely does the sensory room give households a safe, calming house that meets kids’s social-emotional wants and makes the rec middle extra inclusive for everybody, however the uniqueness of its design can be an actual supply of satisfaction for the neighborhood.
“Our special-education academics couldn’t be extra excited,” Dean mentioned. “It virtually takes their breath away the primary time they see it.”
“There’s numerous pleasure in regards to the house,” Davidson echoed. “Our board needed one thing we may very well be pleased with—and we positively bought that.”
Longcor is gratified that native households now have a secure, judgment-free setting the place kids with particular wants can play—and fogeys can “take their armor off” and chill out for a second as nicely.
“A person would by no means be capable to afford a room like this for his or her baby,” she concluded. “However collectively, we will do that for the frequent good.”