About A.I.D. Training:
Consultants in Recreational Therapy
and Special Education

A.I.D. Training Consultants in Recreational Therapy and Special Education specialize in the development of Therapeutic Activities for individuals with cognitive impairments.

Traditionally, activity development for individuals with mild or moderate developmental disabilities has not been difficult to orchestrate because the intellectual deficits of these individuals are not severe and these people benefit from a modified program of activities that all people enjoy. On the other hand, people with more severe or profound brain damage due to mental retardation or dementia have always presented problems for caregivers because it is difficult to find activities that provide them with engagement. It is for these more severely/profoundly handicapped individuals where A.I.D. Training specialists excel by the development of multi-sensory activities.

How do Multi-Sensory Activities work? We know that all information gets into the brain through the senses – our eyes, ears, mouth, nose and by touch. Receptor cells, if functioning properly, pick up the physical stimulation in the environment and translate it into electrical impulses that travel via the peripheral nervous system to the brain for processing, allowing learning and perception to occur. People with more severe/profound cognitive handicaps often have damage in these receptor cells, hence, for these individuals, it is difficult for normal stimulation to reach the brain, and so the person is left with a very limited ability to learn.

The rationale behind the effectiveness of Multi-Sensory Activities is that they provide the individual with very rich sensory experiences (visual stimulation in the form of bright or colored lights, auditory stimulation that can be soothing sounds or types of music, olfactory information that can be therapeutic aromas, or things to touch that vary in textures). It is the richness of these sensory experiences that increase the likelihood that multi-sensory stimulating information from the environment will reach the brain. Once information can get into the brain of these severely impaired people, opportunities for learning can occur. (For more information please send us an email.)