Written by Megan Smith, PT
Unlike traditional teaching methods, multisensory learning optimizes a student’s unique strengths and learning style to meet academic goals. Using specific tools and procedures that engage some or all of the senses, multisensory education has been found to be more effective than other teaching styles, especially for children with learning difficulties. Sensory devices can also help kids living with sensory processing disorder (SPD) to overcome aversions to textures, tastes, smells, sounds, and movement, helping them to better organize and integrate the sensory input. With advice from our experts combined with customer feedback, we will help you determine the best multisensory learning tool for your child in this article.
 | 1) Textured Sensory Walls View Product |
Adding an extra dimension to multisensory rooms, the Aroma Fan and Light Reward can also be used alone, delivering pleasant aromatherapy to stimulate the sense of smell and sight. Modeled on the philosophy of the originators of the multisensory movement, this sensory room equipment from TFH takes the 5th spot in our review with its ability to both stimulate and calm the senses, depending upon which essential oils you choose to use. A cotton ball with a few drops of essential oil is placed inside each of the four compartments. When the user presses a colored switch at the top of the compartment, it rewards the user by lighting up and gently blowing scent into the room.
These bursts of aroma are adjustable in 5 to 30-second time options to suit specific user needs, games, and therapy goals. The aroma device comes with four essential oils, including lavender for calming and relaxation, and citrus oils for stimulating the appetite, improving digestion, and creating a better sense of well-being. All of these attributes can improve focus and concentration, helping kids who are both under-stimulated and over-stimulated to learn in a more effective way. Easy to use, clean, and maintain, this popular multisensory tool is also conveniently switch-adaptable to ensure capability for all users.
Coming in at number 4 on our list, the Handheld Fiber Optic Bundle by Rover Education provides exceptional multifunctionality at an affordable price point. Perfect for a multisensory classroom, this luminous tool is ideal for fidgety kids who can’t sit still and need something to do with their hands. It delivers both visual and tactile sensory feedback to help children better organize and assimilate these sensory skills. It also helps students remember lessons more effectively when it’s integrated into the learning plan. It calms over-stimulated behaviors while it enhances creativity and a sense of wonder with its tactile, color-changing light experience.
Often used in children’s therapy centers and hospitals, this fun, and functional fiber optic bundle can also be used at home. It is completely safe to handle and the fiber strands do not get hot to the touch - they can even have contact with water! Its reflective LED light and fiber optic technology ensure even color distribution throughout every strand for calming visual and tactile engagement. An easy-to-use remote enables control for multiple patterns of color sequences for customizable play and therapy.
As one of the best-selling multisensory toys for years, the Ring Around Bells Switch Toy by Enabling Devices takes the 3rd position in our review with its multifunctionality as a sensory therapy device and as a music therapy tool. Offering both visual and auditory sensory stimulation, this multisensory toy is operated by its integrated switch but it’s also switch-adaptable, allowing you to use a different capability switch that’s more suitable to meet specific user needs. It helps children to develop skills such as listening, grasping, and eye-hand coordination, giving them a variety of ways to use this toy at home, at therapy, or at school.
When this bell toy is activated with a switch, it spins around while a hanging ball strikes each bell, playing the musical scale as multicolored LED lights inside each bell twinkle. The bells can be removed and placed back in a different order to create different music, or they can be played alone separately. Whatever way they play, these precision-tuned bells deliver crystal-clear sound that encourages auditory sensory processing. Combined with the dazzling visual effects, this well-loved therapy device is perfect for use in a multisensory classroom, a pediatric therapy center, during music class, and at home.
Get kids moving with the Musical Squares Toy for Visual and Auditory Stimulation by TFH! Making our list at number 2 with its exceptional visual and auditory sensory stimulation, this delightful multisensory tool also encourages gross-motor movement with cause-and-effect comprehension, optimizing learning skills. Children step on or touch the colored squares on the floor pad which then light up the corresponding colors on the slimline wall box, giving visual feedback, along with a sound cue for auditory feedback. Offering a wide variety of sounds, including a round of applause for correct color matching, this highly flexible multisensory tool can be used in multiple ways at home, during therapy, or at school.
The movement-sensitive Musical Squares toy can conveniently work with two controller pads so kids can play with a buddy. Its exceptional sound quality can be adjusted up or down to suit preferences and the environment, while it also offers an auxiliary input socket and cord to attach an MP3 player, CD player, smartphone, or another device to play background music. With 10 different themes and multiple interactive games, this popular sensory equipment is often integrated into multisensory classrooms to maximize whole-brain learning.
With its variety of options that are well-suited for multiple diagnoses, we chose the Textured Sensory Walls by TFH to be our number one selection for multisensory learning tools. Providing hours of tactile play and visual sensory exploration, this multisensory wall comes in a small or large size, or in a large UV-painted format to optimize visual sensory input. Endlessly fascinating for both pediatric and adult users, these walls are loaded with all kinds of different shapes, colors, and textures to help participants better organize tactile and visual sensory information. They also help users develop and improve both fine motor and gross motor skills through manipulation of the many objects.
Often used for children and adults on the autism spectrum (ASD), sensory walls like this have been shown to increase attention span, focus, and readiness to learn and are also used for people living with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Down syndrome, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Anyone living with sensory processing disorder (SPD) can benefit from play therapy with these sensory walls. Aside from use at home, they are often found in schools and multisensory classrooms, daycares, rehab centers, therapy facilities, hospitals, and nursing homes. Easy to use as either a portable or mountable sensory device, its durable Baltic birch wood is exceptionally strong and durable for long-lasting functionality, with porous tactile materials for easy cleaning and sanitation.
In order to determine the best multisensory learning tool for your child, it is necessary to figure out what kind of learner style they best inhabit. Although durability, cleaning/maintenance ease, portability for travel, and ease of use are all important factors, establishing your child’s particular learning style or a mix of styles will help tremendously in finding just the right multisensory learning tool to fit their needs.
Learning, comprehending, and remembering mostly with sight, kids who are visual learners are more dependent on their vision because they understand things best when they’re in text, colors, shapes, or pictures. Children living with deafness or hearing loss often prefer visual sensory stimulation as well. Choose multisensory learning tools that offer engaging visuals, such as bright colors, flashing lights, and a variety of shapes.
Using their ears to learn, comprehend, and retain information, auditory learners receive instruction better through sound regardless of their visual capability. They also need to hear themselves speak what they have learned. The best multisensory learning tools for auditory learners include devices that make sounds, amplify voices and create music.
Responding to movement and activity, kinesthetic learners can focus, concentrate, and learn more effectively by moving in ways that imitate the concepts they have learned. They may also be fidgety, can’t sit still, and need to keep moving as they are taught to be able to retain the lesson. Choose active, energetic multisensory learning tools that encourage movement and gross motor skills to activate.
Learning better through the sense of touch, tactile learners often use their hands to demonstrate what they’ve learned. They like to move things around and manipulate objects, often fascinated with new textures they can’t keep their hands away from. Choose tactile stimulation multisensory learning tools that come with lots of textures or those that require fine and gross motor skills for satisfying sensory input.
It is important to note that multisensory tools can also be used for better sensory integration. For children challenged with a sensory processing disorder, those on the autism spectrum, and a variety of other medical conditions such as Down syndrome, dyslexia, ADHD, and anxiety, multisensory devices can help integrate the senses to overcome aversions to tactile, auditory, visual, and kinesthetic feedback.
Building on the theory that students learn best when information is presented in different modalities, a multisensory approach to learning is one that integrates sensory activities. Incorporating the learning styles for auditory, tactile, visual, and kinesthetic learners, the multisensory approach uses a wide range of tools and devices that stimulate the senses, helping all students to learn more effectively.
Taking into account the fact that not all students learn the same way, there are four basic types of multisensory learning that include Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, and Tactile. Also referred to as VAKT, these different learning styles require an innovative educational response. Visual students learn by seeing, auditory students learn by hearing, kinesthetic students learn by moving, and tactile students learn by touch.
A multisensory classroom engages students in more effective learning by using tools, devices, and methods that stimulate the sensory system of each student. Engaging more than one sense at a time, multisensory instruction uses sight, hearing, movement, and touch to give students multiple ways to connect with what they’re learning.
Defined as relating to or involving several physiological senses, other words and terms commonly used to refer to multisensory include sensory integration, multisensorial, and multimodal. While words and terms like tactile stimulation, vibroacoustic therapy, sound-based, and auditory sense are often associated with multisensory learning, therapy, and integration, they are imprecise at defining the entire meaning that multisensory conveys.
As a key to adaptive behavior, multisensory integration is important because it allows us to experience the world as it is. Categorizing and organizing the information it receives from every sense and working in conjunction with the nervous system, multisensory integration can be improved with the use of specially-designed multisensory tools, rooms, and equipment to achieve specific and measurable therapy and educational goals. Employing visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile strategies to both relax and stimulate the user, these approaches can boost learning skills and ensure healthy sensory integration.
Sensory toys are important for children on the autism spectrum (ASD) because they are designed to stimulate the senses to improve sensory processing disorders - a common challenge for those living with autism. They’re often more appealing to kids with ASD as they help to provide the sensory experience the child is seeking, helping youngsters on the spectrum to stay calm. Like for all kids, the best sensory toys for children with autism are the ones they can relate to, that coincide with their interests, and that they can interact and play with in a way that’s accessible to them.
Multisensory learning in the form of the Orton-Gillingham Approach is considered the gold standard in multisensory structured teaching for students of all ages struggling with dyslexia. Specifically addressing the learning styles of dyslexic readers, some of the multisensory strategies employed may include writing in a sand tray, forming letters and words in the air, manipulating magnetic letters, and finger-tapping out the sounds in words. Although the focus of the Orton-Gillingham method is to break the code of language, practicing it until it’s automatic, dyslexic students also work on comprehension, grammar, and vocabulary through direct visual, auditory, kinesthetic, or tactile multisensory delivery.
Multisensory learning tools give all students a more effective whole-brain teaching method, encouraging them to learn by stimulating the senses. Because every student has a different learning style, multisensory devices can help play to those strengths with visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile sensory feedback. These sensory tools can also help kids overcome aversions to touch, sound, sight, taste, smell, and movement, providing them with the specific feedback they need to achieve multisensory integration.
Although all of the tools we selected for this article would make the best choice for a child with those specific special needs, we chose the Textured Sensory Walls by TFH as our number one multisensory pick. Suitable for a wide range of diagnoses, these walls inspire hours of tactile and visual play and exploration, along with improving both fine and gross motor skills. They make a great choice for most users and are especially ideal for therapy centers and doctor’s offices.
Be sure to check out our article on the best sensory calming toys and tools for kids with special needs along with the Sensory Motor section of our Special Needs catalog. You can also learn more beneficial special needs parenting tips at our free educational online resource, Caregiver University.
Megan has been a part of Rehabmart since its inception nearly 20 years ago. For the past several years she has been enjoying her role as HR Director while maintaining her Physical Therapy license. When she isn't working on her next in-service or working to find a new team member, she enjoys her five children, helping those who have PT type ailments, baking, practicing yoga, and working out.
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