The clinical effectiveness of a multisensory therapy on clients with developmental disability.
Multisensory therapy is a pleasant break, not a behavior fix.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Chan et al. (2005) ran a hospital RCT. They split clients with developmental delay into two groups.
One group got multisensory therapy. The other got regular activity sessions. Staff tracked mood, relaxation, aggression, and stereotypy.
What they found
Multisensory therapy lifted mood and helped clients relax. It did not cut aggression or stereotypy.
The activity group improved just as much on those problem behaviors. In short, the room was fun, but not a treatment.
How this fits with other research
Iwata et al. (1990) also tested a sensory room. After a functional analysis, the brief drop in self-injury vanished. Both papers agree: sensory rooms feel nice, yet do not change behavior.
Corrigan et al. (1998) took a different path. They gave matched sensory toys plus brief blocking. Stereotypy and destruction nearly stopped. Behavioral tactics, not soft lights, got the win.
Dawson et al. (2025) repeated the lesson. A full FBA led to a custom plan that cut self-injury and restraint. Again, assessment-based treatment beat passive sensory input.
Why it matters
If you want calm, a multisensory room works. If you want less aggression or stereotypy, run an FA and use behavioral tactics. Spend your minutes on reinforcement, extinction, or matched toys, not on hoping lights and music will do the job.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Many clients in Hong Kong with developmental disabilities stay in mental hospitals because of mental disorders and behavioural problems. There is a need to identify strategies that promote psychological well-being and reduce problem behaviours in this group of clients. This study evaluates the impact of multisensory therapy on participants' emotional state, level of relaxation, challenging behaviour, stereotypic self-stimulating behaviour (SSB) and adaptive behaviour (AB). Using an experimental design, 89 participants were recruited from a developmental disability unit in a hospital in Hong Kong and randomly assigned to either an experimental (n = 48) or a control group (n = 41). Multisensory therapy sessions (n = 36) were conducted with experimental group and activity sessions (n = 36) were conducted with controls for 12 weeks. Multisensory therapy promoted participants' positive emotions and relaxation. However, there was no evidence that multisensory therapy was superior to activity therapy in reducing aggressive behaviour and stereotypic self-stimulating behaviour or promoting adaptive behaviour. The key variables that influence clients' behaviours in the multisensory therapy may be related to the relationship with the carer, constant environment, relaxation and freedom from demands rather than sensory input. Multisensory therapy could be used to provide leisure and promote psychological well-being, rather than for reducing problem behaviour.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2005 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2004.02.002