As most of you know I work with premature infants. Still trying to find ways of improving outcomes. I posted on a teacher’s board and got some great ideas. ONe of which was a snoezelen room. This is a room made to provide stimulation for all the senses. I think I might be able to make something similar,was wondering if anyone out there has a room like this or knows where I can find some pictures or ideas on it.
Oh,and btw,what about funding? Grants from organizations to purchase equipment?
Re: okay question,anyone have a snoezelen room out there??
wow! Eileen! Thanks.. I searched lycos,will try the google,thanks,thanks,my babies thank you:-)
my boy did Snoozelin for a year and a half...
1 1/2 hrs. on Mon night solo and 1 1/2 hrs. on Wed with two other children (all three were autistic). We saw absolutely no benefit from it. I do not think it was Snoozelin’s fault, I think it may be very helpful for people who have trouble receiving sensory input. With my boy the problem was not a lack of perception, it was too much perception coupled with perseverance upon limited activities and a general failure to communicate.
His Snoozelin sessions did serve to make him a bit more active, although this was actually problematic, as it made him “wired” and his SIB actually increased. Once we put two and two together we pulled him from the program. The mental health agency which offered this therapy we later found out was driving blind, and was more interested in the amount of billable hours they could report to Medicaid than they were in remediation of my boy’s autism.
I guess the bottom line is, appropriate therapies applied to appropriate diagnosies is the answer.
Good luck socks, and let us know how it comes out.
Re: my boy did Snoozelin for a year and a half...
Ahh,interesting.
Okay Dad,what about for increasing cognitive development in premature infants? My main goal here would be to provide stimulation to infants and hopefuly possibly increase or improve development Your comments?
well...
I really do not have an opinion on that one socks, cause I just don’t know very much about premies.
I know Snoezelin was developed to help older people who were losing their touch with the world around regain some of what they were losing. Then it expanded into working with younger people with profound problems with receiving outside stimuli. As I said, I think the local practitioners got there training in Snoezelin by seeing the cool equipment in a catalog and then dreaming up ways to increase their billable hours.
I think it is worth looking into, and I just hope it isn’t a false hope that leads nowhere for you.
I just did a google search and gound lots of pages with pictures and descriptions of what is in their snoezelen rooms. Sounds great! As for funding, many places got funding from Ronald MacDonald Children’s Charities.