The devices in the room allow residents to make simple choices with immediate consequences. Press a blue button and the water in the bubble tube turns blue. Press another button and the patterns on a light board change. People can braid long fiber-optic strands attached to the wall, and stroke them or just feel their weight.
Robbins thinks it's calming to have some power over your environment. "It gives people that sense of efficacy that I can touch this and get involved with this and no one's yelling at me to stop and I can have some effect on my environment."
Two Dutch therapists came up with the idea of Snoezelen (pronounced snooze lin) in the late 1970s. It's a combination of the Dutch verbs snuffelen, which is to seek out and explore, and doezelen, which is to relax. They experimented with simple environments that stimulated the senses of clients with intellectual disabilities. At first, things were pretty low tech: scent bottles, musical instruments, a fan blowing pieces of paper. Modern Snoezelen rooms have more bells and whistles, including the light devices and massage chairs with built-in speakers, projectors that display moving images on walls, and aromatherapy dispensers.