Calming Spaces

Improve Concentration & Focus With A Calming Area, Relaxation Station Or Concentration Station

Create a Relaxation or Concentration Station in your classroom, clinic or home today. It's a challenge for anyone to focus in an exciting learning environment. It's an even bigger challenge if the child's body processes sensory information inefficiently. If their body cannot filter out irrelevant stimuli, a sensory "traffic jam" won't allow them to participate and be productive in various settings. Did you know that 1 in 10 children have a severe problem with "filtering out" sensory input? For example, they hear noises in the background as loud as the teacher's voice, they see fluorescent lights flickering like a strobe light, they are constantly bothered by visual movement in the periphery of their vision. They can't help this! Their Central Nervous System is not mature enough to filter out this "extra" information and so their attention is constantly called to "pay attention to this input". You can minimize sensory overload with the Concentration Stations or Relaxation Stations in the Abilitations Integrations catalog. We can give you one of these catalogs for ideas. Each one provides an "organized" setting for peaceful comfort.

It is important to have an Occupational Therapy evaluation to determine what is calming for your child. What may be calming for one child may stimulate another.

Here are 3 of the most common ways these wonderfully encouraging spaces are used:

1- As a means to calm children so they can re-emerge when ready to come back to the activity. No one learns well when under stress!
2- As a peaceful and encouraging environment for completing tasks.
3- As an ideal, closed environment for teachers and therapists to work with one or more children without interruption.