SID – Sensuousness, Interaction and Participation

The SID project started July 1, 2010 and is about Snoezelen. Snoezelen is a method based on the use of a multisensory experience room designed to awaken children’s interests. It offers them the opportunity to discover, explore and experience at their own pace. The Snoezelen room arouses curiosity, the urge to try and act, and to communicate; but it also can offer a haven of calm and relaxation. Here you can find experiences for the senses in a stimulating and attractive setting. The room can be varied and adapted to each child’s individual needs for security and a utilization that places no demands.

Opportunities for self-initiated activities are important for the development of perception and motor abilities and for people’s experiences and interpretations of the world. Snoezelen’s ambitions and accumulated knowledge of creating rooms for growth that override disabilities can gain new life if the participants experience that objects react to what they do, recognize them and respond to them. When the object and room become interactive and notice the participants, they can also support their development in a new way .

Purpose

Our aim with the SID – Sensuousness, Interaction and Participation – is to further develop the Snoezelen concept to create new opportunities for children with developmental disabilities to utilize today’s interactive possibilities. In the experience rooms SID aims to develop there will be new possibilities for sensousness, interaction and participation, both as stimulation for the senses and relaxation as well as occasions for activity in fellowship and social relations with people and things.

The project with be run in close cooperation with three Snoezelen organization in Malmö, Lund och Gentofte (see links below). Approximately 25 children in compulsory school age will participate in the project. Great emphasis is placed on the formulation of design and development processes so that the children can participate and influence the results.

PURPOSE

The goals for the SID project are to:

To further develop and expand the current Snoezelen methodology.
To design and develop interactive Snoezelen applications in cooperation with three Snoezelen organizations.
To disseminate knowledge of interactive Snoezelen at seminars, lectures, trade fairs and on the Internet.
To generate the prerequisites for making the interactive Snoezelen into a product.

TARGET GROUP

Primarily children with developmental disabilities aged 6-16, those close to them and professionals in the Snoezelen organizations. Snoezelen in itself has a considerably broader target group and the probability for additional dissemination effects to these groups is greater

FOCUS

The project is designed to create new opportunities for the children involved, their family, friends and professionals to participate and affect the design and development of the contents of the project. To achieve this involves challenges prevailing design methods. By building primitive prototypes that materialize and visualize questions and arguments, new forms of participation can be engendered. The SID project’s design process has three focuses:

To become aware of one’s own body as a part of the interaction

Movement and change are necessary for physical, sensuous experiences. This involves gross motor activity, tactile pressure, vibration, balance, warmth, etc., and builds on primary sensory integration, one of the pillars of Snoezelen.

More than a button

The interaction that can be found in assistive technology today is based almost exclusively on off/on functions. In the Snoezelen context, interaction based on continuous feedback will be applied. This is done so that the child is able to continuously and as clearly as possible receive feedback to changes, such as when something moves, grows warmer, becomes lighter, pushes harder, grows louder, etc. The feedback is based on stronger sensuousness and does not take place as an either/or phenomenon but continuously and gradually.

Togetherness and essence

New interactive possibilities pave the way for new opportunities for interaction spending time together through, around, with and in objects. The interactive Snoezelen is based on active people and interactive objects that have an ”essence”, recognize and change themselves over time. In this respect, the object can gradually adapt itself to the people.