See, Hear, Feel: The Rise of Sensory Rooms

In our latest #NDVoices articles, Neurodiversity in Business (NiB) contributor Frieda discusses the importance of sensory rooms for neurodivergent people.

All opinions expressed are the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of NiB.

Sensory challenges, for some neurodivergent people, can constitute one of the most impactful features of their neurodivergence. (Sensory processing disorder affects many autistic and ADHD people and can sometimes occur outside of those neurotypes.)

When I started attending an all-girls secondary school at the age of 12, I was suddenly transported into a cacophonous, crowded, and fluorescently lit environment that, even as an adult, I dread to imagine having to tolerate for any length of time.

Back then, I was not aware that I was autistic and had not yet articulated the sensitivities to noise, touch, light and smell that remain a feature of my life. As humans do, I found an acceptable workaround and, in my first years at that school, I would retreat in silent contemplation to a blissfully quiet, dimly lit chapel every lunchtime to decompress.

Many autistic people, as well as people with ADHD, have heightened sensory sensitivities that can cause them to hear everything (the clanking of air-conditioning, the hum of electricity, the exact words whispered by a person on the other side of the office). Prolonged exposure can cause physical discomfort, agitation and lead to emotional dysregulation.

Into adulthood, I continued to seek refuge in churches whenever I felt overwhelmed or over-stimulated in large cities or crowds. I sought release in nooks, crannies and quiet, out-of-the-way spaces. Unfashionable cafes and libraries were firm favourites. Like many neurodivergent people, I require a lot of down-time to regulate my nervous system. Without opportunities to counter-balance the sensory onslaught of the world, headaches and burn-out ensue.

In recent years, my two children have been diagnosed with sensory processing disorder (in addition to autism in the case of my eldest) and both benefit from the existence in most mainstream Irish primary schools (up to age 12) of sensory or multi-sensory rooms. Each day, a trained assistant brings them to the room (called the seomra suaimhneas, or the room of peace or tranquillity, in Irish) for 20—30 minutes, offering them respite from the classroom environment and a chance to decompress in a relaxing space. So effective are these rooms as tools to regulate that when I pick up my daughters I can guess from their moods if they were not able to visit the room that day – usually due to staff shortages.

In fact, it was my daughter’s reaction to being brought to a sensory room for the first time that prompted us as parents to proceed with her autism assessment after several years of hand-wringing and worrying about the stigma a diagnosis would bring. Bursting in the door after school that day, she described, breathless with excitement, how amazing this space was and how much she loved it and we realized that we needed to have her formally diagnosed so she could access these spaces where they are available.

That was a decision we never regretted as we came to realise she had already intuited her own difference but, lacking a framework to rationalise it, had begun to feel, in her own words, like an “alien”. As Chloe Hayden says in her bookDifferent, Not Less: "Children know that they're neurodivergent. They know that they're different. I promise you that a label of autism, or ADHD, or whatever it may be is far better than the labels they have internally given themselves.”

The neuro-affirmative practice we attended helped us to explain the diagnosis to my daughter in a letter that set out - in plain and age-appropriate terms - the challenges and strengths that the psychologists assessing her had observed. She has fully embraced her neurotype and happily (and casually) discloses it as she sees fit. In fact, sometimes her connection with her own autism at the age of 11 seems deeper than mine in that she consistently (and accurately) perceives others’ autism before I do.

Our family has utilised the sensory room at Dublin airport when travelling, thereby significantly reducing the sensory dysregulation that usually accompanies travel and fending off potential meltdowns. Indeed, many organisations and public institutions are starting to add quiet rooms and/or multi-sensory rooms where people can retreat as and when they need to. In an era of open-plan offices, the need for such spaces has become more acute and, like most disability accommodations, sensory rooms have wider applications and benefits than originally anticipated and can help many different types of people at different stages in their lives.