making a sensory room, any tips?

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nintendofan
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27 Feb 2012, 7:35 am

hi, im making a sensory room.
trying to. im doing this myself as a autistic adult (im moderately suvere autistic, with a lot of computer education.) my brother will help set it up.
i found some noise reduction headphones, so that is sorted. (i am EXTREMLEY sensitive to noise)
i have only got £400 to make a sensory room, and need advice on what to buy, and where from.
i am going to get a rail put up in the dining room (which is a computer room) there is a small'ish bit of the room i can close off from the world, and make it a world of relaxation.
i can get a bubble tube (sensory item, filled with water, changes colour and bubbles rise from the bottom in a relaxing motion) for about £40 .
i like things like sand, relaxing music, a calm enviroment. i also "seek alot of physical contact" .
what light would you recomend? just if i was to paint on the wall or somthing it would be very dark and i need to know the appropriate light to light it up a slight bit.
what do you think about fibire optic lights that are like string lights? they are about £250 .
i get paid about £400 a month (DLA) so i could push getting more things until the month after and get what affordable and essensial with the current £400.


_________________
moderate low functining autistic (i was diagnosed with autism, not aspeger syndrome).
my picture is my ear defenders that i wear all the time. pictured is silencio earmuff, l1 howard leight, i also own 12 howard leight (not pictured) .


liloleme
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27 Feb 2012, 8:49 am

Someone else asked about a sensory room but when I answer she did not respond so I copied and will paste for you as we just made a rather inexpensive sensory room for my kids. If you are going to make a ball pit go to Amazon, its where we got our blow up pool and 3000 balls that filled the pool halfway. If you are handy enough there are many places online that have ways to make ball pits, there was one that a guy made in his dorm room instead of a couch.
Ive been in my kids ball pit...it was hard because of my disease but the bottom of the pool is also inflatable so I got the balls out from behind my back and let my daughter cover me and moved my arms and legs around, it felt really good.

So here is my answer to the other persons post who, I guess wasnt all that interested:

I am making one now. My daughter is having a lot of problems in her school and she is very stressed due to the fact that the people that are teaching her know nothing about autism. We have tried, we have given them help and even her therapy center has tried to help. My daughter is not doing well right now, she is regressing again, this is partially due to my illness and partially due to the school. We are going to demand that she go to the autism school next year. They talked us out of it saying the other kids would be more low functioning. I feel like even though some children may appear "low functioning" on the outside they are actually very intelligent. She is around these same children at therapy and she is happy there, she plays with them and understands them. My son is in the specialized school with kids who have ASD, ADHD and LD's. Since Maddy is above average she would have to go in the autism class but my son has kids in his class and therapy group that are non verbal and he actually helps them. He has become a buddy (my son has Aspergers btw) to a non verbal little boy who has a wandering problem. My son Luc keeps and eye on him and holds on to him if he starts to wander away, the little boy does not mind Luc touching him.
Anyway, we are doing our sensory room cheap until we get our house...we are in a rental right now that is down the street from the school that my daughter goes to and claims to "hate" which is a word I have never heard her use. She adores therapy and cant wait to get out the door when they special taxi comes to get her. My son also hated the school as he was bullied, he loves his new school and his therapy.

We got a blow up pool and 3000 balls for a ball pit. We would love to put in a swing but we have fake ceilings so we have our IKEA swing in the garage which is only 20$ btw and will hold an adult. We are considering putting a pull up bar in the doorway or hallway as it is narrow. We have LED Christmas lights in the plastic tubes. We have LED butterfly lights that we got at office playground....I highly recommend them for sensory toys, they are cheap and ship everywhere. We are going to get some bean bags or those huge pillows. We put the soft puzzle floor and we have some rugs which is good if you do not have carpeting. I ordered a large weighted blanket. I also got them a fish aquarium light and a lava lamp instead of bubble lamps for now. We have a bilibo and we got a big round red bilibo type thing that they both fit in. They have a trampoline which is too big for the room so we moved it to the living room, but if you child is little I recommend the smaller ones with the handlebars. We had that type before we moved from the US. They do tend to use the handle bars to hang on and flip upside down but if you are worried you can put a bike helmet on them....to me it was a multifunctional toy.

We found these awesome indoor climbing walls and a sort of swing set with things to climb on that braces between the floor and the ceiling which we will get when we move to our house. I also bought them those big blow up pool toys. My son has a dolphin and my daughter has a seal. They sit on those and hop around and they also have exercise balls and I ordered my daughter a bumpy peanut shaped inflatable ball as well. We got the pool the big round thing, looks like this http://www.rueducommerce.fr/m/ps/mpid:M ... C31M472672 the pool animals and the fish tank light today. I hope the balls come soon. We are going to go to the toy store this weekend and see if we can find a suitable slide for the ball pit. The ball pit is temporary until we move because we are going to get a big one and spend some money because I know my kids will use it for a very long time.....they are 9 and 6 but I want to get a suitable one for now and I think they will use it for a long time.

If you have an OT I would ask them what the most important things you should get are that would help their sensory needs the most. I know my kids only want sensory toys.....aside from my sons battle tops. Also keep lots of shaving cream....you can use some old baking pans and put sand or you can buy that pretend snow to play with if they have a lot of tactile issues. My son learned to write his letters with his fingers in sand as it felt better than holding a pen...he used his finger with the sand on the pan.

If I could have I would have bought this for the ball pit http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0026H ... d_i=507846 however I could not find one that was worth shipping to France....its like part trampoline and part ball pit. We got a deep blow up pool that you can see through.

I know most of these things are for kids but, like I said the ball pit was great for me and Im 44 and about 64 kilos which is about 140 lbs. I also love the lights and I like my kids tangles and squishy sensory toys and we play with theraputty and play doh and sand together because I have sensory needs too.....I was diagnosed Aspie about 4 years ago. Also as I noticed you are in the UK, I am American but I live in France. You can order from Office Playground (just google it), they have fast shipping to Europe even though they are in the US (Maybe Canada but they are quick). I shop there at least once every couple of months, they have a multitude of sensory toys and they are VERY inexpensive. The same stuff I find at office playground is so much cheaper than the same stuff you find at those "autism stores". I think people try to rip us off personally! Its like If you put Autism in front of something you can add more money to it.



nintendofan
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27 Feb 2012, 11:51 pm

liloleme wrote:
Someone else asked about a sensory room but when I answer she did not respond so I copied and will paste for you as we just made a rather inexpensive sensory room for my kids. If you are going to make a ball pit go to Amazon, its where we got our blow up pool and 3000 balls that filled the pool halfway. If you are handy enough there are many places online that have ways to make ball pits, there was one that a guy made in his dorm room instead of a couch.
Ive been in my kids ball pit...it was hard because of my disease but the bottom of the pool is also inflatable so I got the balls out from behind my back and let my daughter cover me and moved my arms and legs around, it felt really good.

So here is my answer to the other persons post who, I guess wasnt all that interested:

I am making one now. My daughter is having a lot of problems in her school and she is very stressed due to the fact that the people that are teaching her know nothing about autism. We have tried, we have given them help and even her therapy center has tried to help. My daughter is not doing well right now, she is regressing again, this is partially due to my illness and partially due to the school. We are going to demand that she go to the autism school next year. They talked us out of it saying the other kids would be more low functioning. I feel like even though some children may appear "low functioning" on the outside they are actually very intelligent. She is around these same children at therapy and she is happy there, she plays with them and understands them. My son is in the specialized school with kids who have ASD, ADHD and LD's. Since Maddy is above average she would have to go in the autism class but my son has kids in his class and therapy group that are non verbal and he actually helps them. He has become a buddy (my son has Aspergers btw) to a non verbal little boy who has a wandering problem. My son Luc keeps and eye on him and holds on to him if he starts to wander away, the little boy does not mind Luc touching him.
Anyway, we are doing our sensory room cheap until we get our house...we are in a rental right now that is down the street from the school that my daughter goes to and claims to "hate" which is a word I have never heard her use. She adores therapy and cant wait to get out the door when they special taxi comes to get her. My son also hated the school as he was bullied, he loves his new school and his therapy.

We got a blow up pool and 3000 balls for a ball pit. We would love to put in a swing but we have fake ceilings so we have our IKEA swing in the garage which is only 20$ btw and will hold an adult. We are considering putting a pull up bar in the doorway or hallway as it is narrow. We have LED Christmas lights in the plastic tubes. We have LED butterfly lights that we got at office playground....I highly recommend them for sensory toys, they are cheap and ship everywhere. We are going to get some bean bags or those huge pillows. We put the soft puzzle floor and we have some rugs which is good if you do not have carpeting. I ordered a large weighted blanket. I also got them a fish aquarium light and a lava lamp instead of bubble lamps for now. We have a bilibo and we got a big round red bilibo type thing that they both fit in. They have a trampoline which is too big for the room so we moved it to the living room, but if you child is little I recommend the smaller ones with the handlebars. We had that type before we moved from the US. They do tend to use the handle bars to hang on and flip upside down but if you are worried you can put a bike helmet on them....to me it was a multifunctional toy.

We found these awesome indoor climbing walls and a sort of swing set with things to climb on that braces between the floor and the ceiling which we will get when we move to our house. I also bought them those big blow up pool toys. My son has a dolphin and my daughter has a seal. They sit on those and hop around and they also have exercise balls and I ordered my daughter a bumpy peanut shaped inflatable ball as well. We got the pool the big round thing, looks like this http://www.rueducommerce.fr/m/ps/mpid:M ... C31M472672 the pool animals and the fish tank light today. I hope the balls come soon. We are going to go to the toy store this weekend and see if we can find a suitable slide for the ball pit. The ball pit is temporary until we move because we are going to get a big one and spend some money because I know my kids will use it for a very long time.....they are 9 and 6 but I want to get a suitable one for now and I think they will use it for a long time.

If you have an OT I would ask them what the most important things you should get are that would help their sensory needs the most. I know my kids only want sensory toys.....aside from my sons battle tops. Also keep lots of shaving cream....you can use some old baking pans and put sand or you can buy that pretend snow to play with if they have a lot of tactile issues. My son learned to write his letters with his fingers in sand as it felt better than holding a pen...he used his finger with the sand on the pan.

If I could have I would have bought this for the ball pit http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0026H ... d_i=507846 however I could not find one that was worth shipping to France....its like part trampoline and part ball pit. We got a deep blow up pool that you can see through.

I know most of these things are for kids but, like I said the ball pit was great for me and Im 44 and about 64 kilos which is about 140 lbs. I also love the lights and I like my kids tangles and squishy sensory toys and we play with theraputty and play doh and sand together because I have sensory needs too.....I was diagnosed Aspie about 4 years ago. Also as I noticed you are in the UK, I am American but I live in France. You can order from Office Playground (just google it), they have fast shipping to Europe even though they are in the US (Maybe Canada but they are quick). I shop there at least once every couple of months, they have a multitude of sensory toys and they are VERY inexpensive. The same stuff I find at office playground is so much cheaper than the same stuff you find at those "autism stores". I think people try to rip us off personally! Its like If you put Autism in front of something you can add more money to it.


Thank you very helpfull. I agree with that last part with the "rip off" I get money for my autism £400 a month but when it comes to buying sensory items.... That amount of money is practicly nothing.


_________________
moderate low functining autistic (i was diagnosed with autism, not aspeger syndrome).
my picture is my ear defenders that i wear all the time. pictured is silencio earmuff, l1 howard leight, i also own 12 howard leight (not pictured) .