Sound Therapy

Switch Activities for Special Needs

Switches are such a simple technology that it’s easy to overlook them in the era of super-computers and flying cars, but they’re a technology which almost anyone can make use of to empower individuals with special needs, allowing them to bring about change by themselves.

In this article I’m going describe, step by step, how to use the Buzz! Controllers we‘ve already mentioned on the blog to set up a switch system for an individual with special needs. In order to follow this guide and fully explore the options available with switch control you’ll need
a set of switches (like these) and access to the internet. Don’t worry if you don’t have any switches though, you’ll be able to
follow along using just your keyboard. Continue reading ‘Switch System Tutorial’

An Autism Friendly Family Screening

It is estimated around 1 in 100 children between the ages of five and nine have autistic spectrum disorders, but recent research from Cambridge University suggests the figure is actually closer to 1 in 64, meaning (by my less than rigorous mathematical reckoning) there are around 781,250 children affected by the disorder in the UK. Continue reading ‘Yogi Bear’

Squiggly Who?

Is it an octopus? Is it a fish? The strange colourful creatures that
live in the sensory gazebo of a Music Gym are in fact Squiggly Normans.

Continue reading ‘Squiggly Norman at the Music Gym’

The Birth of Sound Therapy

Autism can present many challenges for children, their parents, teachers and carers. No approach offers a magical cure: however recent advances in movement sensor technology and in the development of   therapies that make use of them may help open a door, offering what may well be the users’ first experience of initiating change and controlling a situation on their own volition.

Continue reading ‘Phil Ellis and Soundbeam’

A Music Gym Review

Continue reading ‘Paper Jamz Guitars’

Some ideas from the Music Gym

We found ourselves discussing the use of video in a sensory room or Music Gym setting this morning (for example Video Based Intervention). Soon we were lamenting how large and unwieldy modern media players are. And more importantly how that can impede their use with individuals with special needs. Continue reading ‘Possibilities of Video in Special Needs Activities’

The Music Gym is dedicated to refining and developing new ideas and new ways of using technology to engage people with complex needs. On the blog and in our newsletter we’d like to run a regular section where readers can suggest any and all ideas they’d like to see developed. We’ll take these ideas and let Tom (our technical director) push the project as far as he can.
These ideas will be published in our monthly newsletter and once finished make their way onto our upcoming site (multisensorysolutions.co.uk) to hang in our showcase of awesomeness for others to share and use.
Continue reading ‘Budget Switches for a Special Needs Setting’

“… the brain structures that underlie learning and memory are the very same structures that regulate many kinds of emotions…“
-Ned Kalin,
Professor Department of
Psychology, University of Wisconsin.

Continue reading ‘Emotion and Memory’

A Music Gym review of the Paper Jamz Drum kit

We’re always on the lookout for items which can offer inclusive interaction for individuals of all ability levels at The Music Gym and this time we think we’ve come across a winner.
Continue reading ‘Paper Jamz Review’

As anyone who’s used a sensory room or Snoezelen knows – they can be a fantastic method for engaging individuals with complex and/or special needs. Done well they can offer a relaxing space where stimuli such as smells, colour, sound and music immerse all the user’s senses.

Continue reading ‘Sensory Lighting for Special Needs’