Sensory Toys and Spaces

As more awareness about neurodiversity becomes available, so too does understanding and acceptance of places and things to accommodate it. As an autistic person, I have watched places grow and develop new programs and services for the neurodivergent community as I have grown up. They were rare to unheard of when I was growing up in rural California. Particularly libraries were pioneers in creating these spaces or allowing check-outs of fidget and sensory toys. But as time progresses and I'm seeing more and more acceptance, I have started to see such spaces pop up in festivals and conventions as well. There will, in these cases, usually be a quiet room filled with sensory toys and/or weighted blankets.

Sensory Toys include:

• Various textured pieces of cloth
• Articulated toys with various moving parts.
• Lava lamps
• Pop-sockets
• Fidget of various sorts not listed here.

My personal favorites are anything you can twist or bend as well as anything you can watch with colored liquid. It can be very fun to de-stress after observing some kind of moving item. It allows my brain to process something repetitive and controlled.



Why these spaces are important:

Sensory spaces allow neurodivergent people to decompress and find a space to exist without needing to mask. Masking is the act of performing as I'd societally expected, whether that is remaining with a certain facial expression or holding your body a certain way. It can also include responding to external stimuli in a way that is socially acceptable when there is otherwise a desire not to. Masking cannot be kept up indefinitely, at least not without adverse effects. Often, neurodivergent people are able to act like themselves within a home or other location where they might be alone, but there may be some limitations on that. Thus, spaces which allow neurodivergent people to unmask makes it possible for them to be healthier and happier when they have to re-mask.

Spaces can be set up in various different ways, but often they are quiet, darker rooms. Likes can often be changed or dimmed to limit excess input. Lights can often be changed to blue, red, white, and so on to better keep the room controlled.

The room is kept quiet to better enable a controlled environment. Sometimes chairs with additional noise suppression are in the room to increase the noise suppression, meaning egg-chairs or similar. It can be quite useful for reducing that last bit of noise. Sometimes, other noise deadening items are added to the walls, like foam blocks, or blankets.

Often, there is a weighted blanket of some kind around, or some other feature to create pressure or an enclosed place. It can be helpful to allow for that kind of feature to add the comfort of the person in the room.

How to improve:

There should be better and more allowance for these spaces in everyday life. A way to exist in this loud and crazy world without feeling the pressure to perform. These spaces and items should be incorporated into the workplace, for example, in a way which better allows for neurodivergent people to engage with high stress situations.

Load locations are starting to add these kinds of rooms, which is particularly useful for events like festivals, or conventions. It would be nice to see further incorporation to these items and spaces to other loud and noisy events like concerts, gigs, or even bars or clubs (a smaller room off from the main which can be briefly used for a couple minutes). It might be hard to incorporate into any given space, but I think it could offer a useful accommodation and assimilation into acceptance of these kinds of differences.