Lessons learned from "sensory rooms"

I just searched "sensory room" on youtube, and here are the first three videos I have found:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlMjpeTz3MY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A713PMWnyOE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRz-uQjvlKA

Other search results are equally amaizing, but this gives you the picture.

Now, the first thought that crosses my mind is this: wouldn't these rooms be enjoyable to ALL children, not just autistic ones? After all, "normal" people enjoy things like sitting by fire, or lights of a Christmass tree. In none of these cases anyone says they like it because of the SENSORY experiences. Especially not in the context in which it is being used with autism. You see, the "sensory" issues autistics have are REALLY bad, like they can't stand fluorescent light, or some textures, and so forth. ON THE OTHER HAND, enjoying a room like that is perfectly normal. So what they are doing is saying "see, your kid enjoyed that room, therefore your kid is just as bad as that other kid who can't stand fluorescent lights". And that is just ridiculous. Now of course it is POSSIBLE that the reason the autistic kids enjoy that room is something completely weird like that and has nothing to do with anything normal people can relate to (such as sitting by fire). But POSSIBLE doesn't imply TRUE. It is also POSSIBLE that their reasons for enjoying that room are perfectly normal -- after all, any normal kid who enjoys science museum would enjoy that room too! So why not give them the benefit of the doubt?

Another thing that makes it unfair is that when I do something that LOOKS autistic -- and I happened to have Aspergers -- people would say "see you did that therefore you just displayed a symptom of autism". Then I would go on the explanations to tell them "the reason I did that has nothing to do with the reasons autistic people do that, it is just a coincidence that my own reasons for doing it -- insert 3 paragraph of explanation -- lead me to do the things you expected of me, but that's only coincidence. Now, no one would listen to three paragraph of explanations. They would just look at "facts". Now lets go back to the "sensory room". In this case they would also have "three paragraph explanation" such as "you see, what I like is not sensory experience itself, but rather I like the way the sound and shape progress, like the way they progress tells me a story, just an abstract version of a story; I don't crave the sensory input as such, I am just interested in the storyline that's all". But you see how long winded my sentences were during the above explanation? So most NT-s wouldn't listen to something as long winded as that, they would just take it as useless justification and stick to the "bottom line" that I have "sensory issues". But then again: here is MUCH shorter explanation: "normal kids like museum and this room looks just like one". Well that's clear enough, now everyone suddenly understands me! But you see, due to my communication problems I can't always think of such simple explanations and THATS WHY no one ever buys the long winded ones I present! Now its true that inability to think of a way of summarizing things in brief way is a symptom of autism. But you see I fully acknowledge I suffer from COMMUNICATION part of autism; what I deny is that I suffer from SENSORY part. But you see, the former completely prevents me from convincing people about the latter. Because of communication part, no one "hears" me and that's why they "fill in blanks" in whatever way they see fit; thus, they ATTRIBUTE TO ME things such as sensory issues and all kinds of other problems I don't have.

Now lets go back to sensory room. If people who made that room didn't realize that autistics might have some other reasons of enjoying it -- other than "sensory" -- then the obvious question is why did they put so much effort into making that room? If it is truly "sensory" why not just throw in a bunch of sounds at random and be done with it? So they KNOW kids might like it because of "hidden story line" which is hwy they put so much effort into making one! Well then, why wouldn't they consider an obvious conclusion that their "sensory" interpretation might be invalidated by everything else they did to that room??? Its almost like they WANT to say that autistic kids have "sensory issues" that's why they had to MANIPULATE THEM INTO liking that room by some OTHER means and then AFTER THE FACT say that it was all sensory! And another obvious question, why not put some sensory rooms into normal schools for NT kids? I am sure NT kids would benefit from these sensory rooms too! Well the reason they don't do that is that if NT kids benefit from these rooms that would invalidate their pre-conceived assumptions about kids with autism hence they don't want to ever try invalidating those.

By the way, speaking of communication, autism is not the only example where people assume pre-conceived conclusions due to communication gap. For example, I have a youtube video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBJBMXw7-fw ) of a woman who was speaking to herself and doctors decided she was speaking to voices in her head. Now she never heard any voices; talking to herself was just her way of calming herself! Yet she couldn't ever explain it to doctors since, due to the label THEY put ON her, she is SUPPOSED TO hear voices! Now don't you see direct analogy here? Both being in sensory room and talking to oneself calms one down. Neither of this has to do with EITHER sensory issues OR hearing voices. Yet in case of sensory room people are FALSELY ACCUSED OF having sensory issues while in case of talking to oneself they are FALSELY ACCUSED OF having hallucinations! Its like they have to "put you in a box". Needing to calm oneself doesn't fit into any "box"; but "sensory issues" and "hallucinations" do. So they have to accuse you of it.

Going back to sensory room, what goes on is that they don't think of autistic kids as example of "kids in general who HAPPENED TO BE autistic". They rather think of them as "different species" so to say. Now lets say, for example, that in some NORMAL school in St Petersburgh they tried that room and kids greatly benefitted from it. In this case, they would say that "great, this room proved useful, now lets try to do the same in other schools". Now when they would say "other schools" that would include schools in Moscow too, NOT just schools in St Petersburgh. But if they were to have some pre-conceived assumption that children in St Petersburgh are somehow different from everyone else, they would say "kids in st Petersburgh like it, so lets try to do it in all the other schools IN ST PETERSBURGH" and it would never occur to them to try it in Moscow! And then when kids across St Petersburgh will ALL benefit from these rooms that would only confirm to them that kids in St Petersburgh are different from Moscow kids (after all they never tried to have that room in Moscow to begin with, yet they simply "take it" as if Moscow kids never benefitted from it, despite the fact that they never had chance to) so that would be even less of a reason to ever try it in Moscow. So you see how self fulfilling prophecy works?