The World’s First Interactive Smart Snoezelen Therapy Room

Every child deserves to see, hear, feel, play—to interact with the world around them; even children with the most severe disabilities. Many children achieved just that in Beit Issie Shapiro’s original Snoezelen, a stimulating, multi-sensory therapeutic tool combining the physical environment (the room) with a trained therapist, enabling exponentially increased results. But our dream was to create a new Snoezelen that even more children, if not all children, could benefit from. Thanks to select UK donors, today that dream has become a reality.

What is Smart Snoezelen? Here is the “what” and “why” of the transformative renovation.  

What: All new Smart equipment is equipped with Wi-Fi, and controllable by iPads

Why: Children and therapists can control and customize the sensory environment from

anywhere in the room (lighting, pictures/video, sound), increasing each child’s active participation while collecting data for research.

What: An adapted virtual reality Interactive Floor System (no goggles needed)

Why: The first to be used for Snoezelen therapy in Israel, the system allows

children with severe disabilities to play any of 80+ motion-detecting games to learn cause and effect, a first step that is essential to function improvement and can change the course of their lives.

What: Greater accessibility and sensory enhancements

Why: Simple design changes make for more effective therapy. Larger entrance ways and less floor padding eases access for children using a wheelchair, while enhanced features like viber acoustic surfaces allowing children to feel sounds.

Noam, a two and a half year old boy with Down Syndrome, was locked inside himself. Nothing could get through to him. Sitting in our Smart Snoezelen, soft blue bubbles began to bounce around him. He waved his small hand over a bubble to his right and—“pop!” it burst. And he kept playing. The game had connected him to the world around him, perhaps for the first time. With Smart Snoezelen, Noam and children like him finally have a way to connect, develop, and reach their optimal potential in all areas of their lives.