One of the primary purposes of sensory rooms is to enhance students' visual learning skills. For this purpose, many sensory rooms contain such visual stimuli as color wheels, mirror balls and reflective lighting panels. In addition, sensory rooms often feature mirrored walls to help special needs children hone their facial recognition abilities.
Helping students enhance their olfactory senses is another core function of school-based sensory rooms. Instructors regularly engage in aromatherapy exercises with special learners. In addition to having a calming effect on students, these activities go a long way toward helping them distinguish between different types of smells and react to them accordingly.
Sensory rooms also help students improve their sense of touch. To this end, instructors have special learners squeeze and run their hands around an assortment of objects that cover a wide range of textures. This helps students develop a deeply ingrained understanding of textures and is particularly useful for the sight-impaired.
Special needs learners can improve their sense of hearing with the help of sensory rooms. For these exercises, instructors expose students to a wide variety of music and sounds, both soothing and unpleasant. These exercises not only serve to increase students' levels of calmness, but also help make them more alert.