Monarch School's
Multi-Sensory Environment

Multi-sensory rooms currently are being studied to determine their effectiveness as therapeutic tools that allow individuals to become more, “motivated, engaged, ambitious and spontaneous” (Rozen, 2004, 2).  As educators we must strive to ensure that technology can help children with disabilities become “active learners, rather than passive participants in learning” (Pagliano, 1999,viii ).  Various studies regarding multi-sensory environments have found a decrease in tactile defensiveness, reduction in self-injurious behaviors and have found that children engage in significantly less maladaptive behaviors and more adaptive behaviors during multi-sensory room sessions (Reddon, Hoang, Sehgal, & Marjanovic, 2004, Singh et al., 2004).  Research has also shown also that sensory integration techniques appear to preserve and reintegrate the body’s ability to receive information through all the sensory modalities (Reddon et al. 2004).