Application of Ambient Scenting and High-Resolution Sound to Children with Intellectual Disabilities to Increase the Total Time for Communication Engagement

Abstract

Snoezelen is a program conducted in the Multisensory Environment (ME) where different sensory components are designed for people with Intellectual Disabilities (IDs) in endeavor to reduce their agitation and conversely to support their ability to focus when they are involved in social activities. This research attempted to quantify the change in the total time of communication engagement while children with IDs participated the interactive programs in the Multisensory Environment where olfactory and sound stimuli were controlled. The pretest was conducted in the isolated calm-down room with controlled scent and sound stimuli, and the result indicated that the children with IDs were agitated by the fact that they were brought into the closed room alone regardless of the multisensory components in the space. In order to remove their agitation caused by the fears from isolation, this experiment was designed to a group of children in the common play room with controlled green aroma and high-resolution nature sounds. The same interactive program was instructed to the group of children and video-taped daily. A professional assessment was performed to measure the total time of communication engagement of each child during the session. The result showed that the use of green scent and also the combination of green scent and high-resolution nature sound in ME helped children with IDs to get engaged much longer in the communication with the teacher and performed less agitated and disoriented behaviors.