Why is multisensory learning important? Part 1
What is the role of the senses in our lives? From conception to death, our lives are governed by the sensations we experience. Sight, touch, hearing, smell, taste, and the vestibular and proprioceptive senses all combine to ensure our safety and survival.
Indeed, Ackerman (1990, 2000) argues: ‘There is no way in which to understand the world without first detecting it through the radar-net of our senses.’
So, the development of our sensory systems is essential to explore and engage with the world around us. But for some children, particularly those with complex needs or autism, their sensory development is impaired, and the learning experiences offered should focus on developing and strengthening these sensory systems.
More recently, The Rochford Review promoted the ‘seven aspects of engagement’ (Standards and Testing Agency 2016) for those pupils not engaged in subject-specific learning. These were ‘responsiveness’, ‘curiosity’, ‘investigation’, ‘discovery’, ‘persistence’, ‘anticipation’, and ‘initiation’ (Carpenter et al 2015).
Following further discussions with the pilot schools involved in the Rochford Review, in January 2020 the Standards and Testing Agency recommended these seven aspects be changed to five. These were ‘exploration’, ‘initiation’, anticipation’, ‘persistence’, and ‘realisation.’
The five aspects provide a framework for practitioners to assess, adapt and personalise the learning experiences they offer, becoming more manageable than the previous seven aspects and thus reducing teacher workload.
So, what space might offer the flexibility and creativity to deliver more personalised sensory stimuli?
Our first port of call might be the multisensory room. A multisensory room offers practitioners a controlled space to focus on the development of a learner’s visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, olfactory, vestibular, and proprioceptive senses – the whole sensory system.
Unlike other spaces, such as a classroom, practitioners have a high degree of control over the sensory stimulus presented and Professor Paul Pagliano (2012) reminds us that a well-designed sensory room is a place where we can ‘increase or decrease a stimulus and use it in isolation or in combination’. In other words, we can custom design the space and sensory stimuli for optimal learning for an individual.
Here’s where the ‘AAA’ principles of a multisensory room also fit in – availability, appropriateness, and achievability! Your multisensory tools and equipment need to be available when you need them – and to work first time.
Does your multisensory room suit all the learning styles and needs of the learners who use it? For example, a visually cluttered room certainly will not suit the learning style of those with autism. Perhaps this bombardment reduces the learner’s ability to respond to the stimuli offered? Does the design of your multisensory room mean that it allows all practitioners to use the equipment without vast technical knowledge? Simplicity is often the best way forward – why have lots of complicated-to-use equipment (that no one will use) when you can have a few, easy-to-operate and effective multisensory tools which will be in continuous use?
In terms of their sensory system, what can the learner experience in a multisensory room? Here, the potential is only limited by the practitioner’s imagination! From the more obvious visual awareness/fixation/tracking to reducing light sensitivity; from auditory discrimination to auditory sequencing; from awareness, responding, and initiation to awareness of others; whether exploring ‘self’ or turn-taking with another, the learning opportunities are endless.
Bozic (1997) comments that ‘educational technology cannot be evaluated in isolation from the educational practices within which it is situated’. In other words, the technology itself is only as important as the way in which the practitioner uses it.
But what if you don’t have access to a multisensory room? What can we offer then?
Find out in the second part of our blog.
Richard Hirstwood
Hirstwood Training Ltd
Ackerman, D. (1990) A Natural History of the Senses. London: Vintage Books.
Ackerman, D. (2000) ‘There is no way in which to understand the world without first detecting it through the radar-net of our senses’, [Online at: https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/08/06/diane-ackerman-a-natural-history-of-the-senses-2/accessed: 12.8.21]
Bozic, N. (1997) ‘Constructing the room: multi-sensory rooms in educational contexts’, European Journal of Special Needs Education, 12 (1), 54-70.
Carpenter, B., Egerton, J., Cockbill, B., Bloom, T., Fotheringham, J., Rawson, H. and Thistlethwaite, J. (2015) Engaging Learners with Complex Learning Difficulties and Disabilities in Learning. Abingdon: Routledge.
Nielsen, L. (1992) Space and Self: Active learning by means of the Little Room. Copenhagen: SIKON.
Pagliano, P. (2012) The Multisensory Handbook. Abingdon: Routledge.
Standards and Testing Agency (2016) The Rochford Review: Final Report. Review of assessment for pupils working below the standard of national curriculum tests. London: STA.
