Sensory Design Studio
Summer is for exploring… These pages have helped organize and plan our summers for a few years now. They are a place to put all the thoughts and emotions that go into creating a fun and growth-centered season. It gets developed a little more each year and includes new original artwork from the year before. Drop a review if you liked it! 188 pages of hard-won quarantine work is ready for summertime! You already know a lot about where you’ve […]
“The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has taken the idea of sensory fiction several stages further and offers a Science Fiction to Science Fabrication course. Using a range of sensors and tools, part of the studies include building a wearable connected book contraption in the form of a strap-on vest. This allows the reader to get fully in contact with the character’s emotions and physical states for a genuinely immersive reading experience. Selected passages trigger vibrations to influence heart rate, and […]
How do I learn everything I can when someone is telling a story? Why is listening is important? Who will notice when I am ready? How I can listen with my whole body? This sensory story will show me a way. “Lending My Heart to Hear” My ears are hearing and my eyes are watching. My mouth is quiet and my body is still. This is how my heart can open and be filled with thoughts from another teller’s story. […]
“Instead of combusting, O’Reilly embarked on the D-monologues, which is made up of lots of conversations with disabled people. “I don’t take people’s stories, it feels too much like theft,” O’Reilly explains. “Instead I took people’s hopes, fears, thoughts, lived experiences, and used them to inform a fictional monologue. There are lots of different opinions: some people say ‘I’m not disabled, I don’t want to be called disabled’ because they may have a very different perspective from someone like me. […]
“I can’t be subtle with my reaction. I cover my face or hide away.” — Helen, Autistic InnerSpace Comic No.146 Contents Selected Reads Sensory Entrancement Sensory Resources Chuckles + Daydreams Sources Discussion Comments
“It can result in leading oneself deeper in to a neurotic retreat and isolation in to those “oh-so-distracting pleasurable safe feelings” which one comes to cherish, finding solace in a perceived to be real yet still illusory sensation and feeling of “energy ” which is then equated with being spiritual or feeling good, without realizing that the momentary high leads nowhere concretely in term of actual mental and emotional growth, not to mention nowhere in term of genuine development. It […]
“McKamey argues that the most important skill for a teacher is his or her ability to build trust with a student, which develops when students can sense that the educator is willing to hear their ideas, thoughts, and musings despite their challenges with grammar, low grades, or test scores in previous classes. This doesn’t mean that teachers need to cushion their feedback with fake praise, but it does mean, she thinks, that schools should help teachers develop skills to recognize […]
“I have seen some autistic people argue that blaming society for our difficulties is shirking personal responsibility and that we should be aiming to ‘improve’ ourselves. This stance says a lot about their conceptualisation of autism: If one sees autistic people as deficient or lacking in some way compared to non-autistic people then it is understandable that one would believe that acting more like a non-autistic person is “self-improvement.” I do not see autism that way at all. All humans […]
What can I do when we have to go to work? This social story about why school and work are important, who will care for me there, and how I can make it go by faster will tell me.
“Misophonia is a troublesome disorder. My sensory issues go far beyond the grasp of sights and sounds. I feel it every time I touch water that is too hot or cold. I feel it when velvet touches my skin and makes me cringe. If I step out into the hot summer heat after my blissfully air-conditioned atmosphere I can feel the hold on my body. All of my senses are subject to sensory overload and under-load. If I do too much I feel my body pull out from under me. My back crumbles under the pressure.”
What will the first day of school be like? This social story about letting go of summer, what will happen on the first day of school, and how I can make new friends there will tell me.
“Welch’s mother is a professor of Renaissance studies at King’s College London who worried about her daughter skipping university to focus on her musical career, lamenting “what a waste of a brain!” Both the lyrics and the poetry in Useless Magic validate Welch’s choice, offering a chance to appreciate on the bare stage of the blank page the fineness of her words. And like fellow poet-musician Nick Cave (thanked for “inspiration and encouragement” here), Welch has found a way for the song and the voice of the rabbit-hearted girl to coexist. As she says herself: “you can have everything.”
How do I get a new thing I want? This social story about learning how to get new things and becoming a Hero for others from listening to stories will tell me.
“According to Williams, however, the recent attention given to spoken word as a distinct genre within the arts is more a return to something that has deep and rich roots in our society: “The resurgence of poetry is cyclical and perpetual. It’s always engaged a new generation of youth who have brought it back to the forefront of culture and put new terms on it, whether it’s beat poetry, bebop poetry, slam poetry – there’s always been these resurgences. But it’s ancient.”
“Up to one in five people may show signs of a synesthesia-like phenomenon in which they ‘hear’ silent flashes or movement, according to a new study from City, University of London.
While the effect is barely known to science, the researchers found that this ‘visually-evoked auditory response’ (vEAR) is far more common than other types of synesthesia – such when certain sounds elicit a specific colour – with flashing lights and motion evoking vivid sounds.
The survival of this association may also explain other links between sound and vision, such as why we like to listen to music synchronised with flashing lights or dance.
…While other typical synesthesias are estimated to have an overall prevalence of 4.4 per cent, the vEAR effect has recently gained some prominence on social media following the rise of ‘noisy GIFs’, and in particular the ‘thudding pylon’ GIF which received thousands of retweets.”
“…The turning point came with a startling realisation: we don’t argue. Ever. Early on in our marriage I was terrified of any sign of anger on his part. Even mild irritation left me quaking. I would shut down and not respond. In the end, we found a way to be and we haven’t had a cross word for more than a decade.
Years ago, Tim would snap over something small and I would retreat upstairs and not come down until I knew he had either gone out or had calmed down. I simply didn’t engage. Now he no longer even considers getting cross; he knows nothing will come of it. Problems are discussed calmly and solutions negotiated. Anything else seems bizarre to me. Why would anyone want to scream and shout at the person they love?”
Sensory Stories | Social Narratives | Space Designs
Embark on a mesmerizing journey into the enchanting world of sensory storytelling! Discover the transformative power of immersive sensory experiences that captivate and engage audiences of all ages and capacities. From beloved children's classics like "The Rainbow Fish" and "Where the Wild Things Are" to the magical realm of Harry Potter, unleash the power of storytelling through the senses. Dive…
Want to use your senses to inspire your seasons this year? Making Madness: My Sensory Journal & Guided Seasonal Planner is available to ship on Amazon now. Today, you can officially purchase a print copy to enjoy. It transforms your daily planner into a mighty keepsake chronicle of your sensory experience through one-year of May 2022 to May 2023. It will…
Embark on an exhilarating journey into the enchanting world of Maurice Sendak's beloved classic, 'Where the Wild Things Are,' right from the comfort of your own sensory spaces! Welcome to Chrysanthemum Stories, where we're bringing the Wild Rumpus to life with this DIY immersive sensory experience that will ignite our senses and spark our imagination. Get ready to release the…
A STORY ABOUT FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS Join us on a trek through the woods as we follow the Wise Old Owl's directions to find the elusive Purple Flower Meadow in this engaging sensory story. This story is a lesson in following directions mixed into the sensory experience of walking through a woodland. We explore the winding path through Heather Heath, cross…