Stimulating The Senses With Bubble Tubes
Ian C. Langtree - Writer/Editor for Disabled World (DW)
Published: 2010/07/13 - Updated: 2025/04/06
Publication Type: Product Release, Update
Category Topic: Home Medical Devices - Academic Publications
Page Content: Synopsis - Introduction - Main - Insights, Updates
Synopsis: This information highlights the benefits of bubble tubes as sensory devices, particularly for individuals with disabilities, seniors, or those experiencing cognitive or emotional challenges. Bubble tubes provide soft, ambient lighting and mesmerizing motion that can help reduce stress, improve focus, and encourage relaxation. Their gentle glow is suitable for individuals with light sensitivity, such as those with autism, and their flowing wax shapes offer visual stimulation that supports neurological development. Bubble tubes are also useful in sensory rooms or therapeutic environments, aiding in mood enhancement and providing a calming distraction for people dealing with chronic pain, mental health issues, or sleep disturbances - Disabled World (DW).
Introduction
Sensory Equipment As Teaching Aids
Sensory equipment is ideal for those suffering from dementia depression autism and certain other behavioral problems. Time spent using sensory equipment increases spatial awareness, concentration, relaxation and alertness and often results in a dramatic benefit to children with sensory impairment. The equipment can also greatly enhance the development of senses such as hearing, sight, smell and touch.
Main Content
Most sensory equipment has been designed to cater for the senses of sound, sight, and touch or feel and includes:
- Illuminated bubble tubes
- Super active and interactive bubble tubes
- Hand held fiber optic sensory lights
- Fiber optic strands of light
- Fiber optic curtain of lights
- Soft-play multi-colored bean bags
- Soft-play shapes
- Light changer and ripple light projectors
- Wireless switches for the control of light, sounds, fans, aromas and computers
- Multi-colored balance beams
- Relaxation music
- Floor pads that emit sounds
- Outdoor sensory vortex tubes and sound posts
- Special needs equipment
Sensory equipment focuses on the more abstract senses of well-being, space and time. Positive, restful and calming feelings and emotions are accomplished by the creative use of sound equipment, different aromas, visual effects, vibrations, and tactile experiences like aromatherapy massages.
The different forms of sensory equipment combine to assist in the body's mental revitalization, stimulation, relaxation and the release of harmful stress.
Bubble Tubes
As a sensory experience, the bubble tube - similar to a lava lamp - is just one of a range of sensory equipment devices that provides a wide range of benefits to assist mainly children with relaxation and threatening behavior problems.
The ascending bubbles and the constantly changing colored lights have a soothing and mesmerizing effect and the columns of bubbles also give off a gentle vibration.
Found in nurseries and playgroups, special schools, family centers, and nursing homes, the bubble tube has proved invaluable as an aid in the exploration and development of all-important social skills.
Monitoring Stress and Agitated Behavior
The bubble tube provides a restful and calming atmosphere, allowing health professionals to observe and monitor stressful behavior in patients.
In many cases the bubble tube is used to promote relaxation for those who suffer from stress and agitation, and in some cases from those suffering from bouts of depression.
How a Bubble Tube Works
Water is pumped around inside a bubble tube and the light is constantly changing color. The air that is blown into the tube causes moving bubbles to shimmer and flicker and the resultant effect is calming and cannot help but draw attention. This effect helps promote visual stimulation and encourages touch through the faint vibration.
The most advanced bubble tube in the education, medical therapy and leisure arenas is one that can be programmed to allow the colors and bubbles to be controlled separately, or in combination.
The 14 different programs are designed for co-operative play as well as competitive games for one person or a group of players. This provides an invaluable tool for the development of many learning-specific skills as well as sensory experiences.
This latest bubble tube enables highly-dependent people to interact with it and each other on a par with physically and intellectually more able people.
Sensory Rooms
More and more schools and health-care facilities are creating sensory or multi-sensory rooms stocked with a wide range of sensory equipment, which almost always includes a bubble tube.
The sensory room's equipment is designed to help people with relaxation and concentration techniques and also to help young people in particular, with learning and behavioral difficulties.
For best results it's important that the room is able to be darkened and is free of noise and disturbance.
There are several sensory and multi-sensory carts available on the market, all of which can be stocked with a bubble tube, a sound system producing soothing sounds, an array of aromatherapy products, a projector to project relevant soothing images, scented lotions, and textured and soft objects for the sensation of touch.
Insights, Analysis, and Developments
Editorial Note: Bubble tubes are more than decorative objects; they serve as practical tools for fostering a sense of calm and focus in therapeutic spaces. Their ability to create a soothing environment makes them invaluable for individuals with sensory sensitivities or neurological impairments. Incorporating bubble tubes into sensory rooms or personal spaces can provide both aesthetic pleasure and tangible emotional benefits - Disabled World (DW).
Author Credentials: Ian is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Disabled World, a leading resource for news and information on disability issues. With a global perspective shaped by years of travel and lived experience, Ian is a committed proponent of the Social Model of Disability-a transformative framework developed by disabled activists in the 1970s that emphasizes dismantling societal barriers rather than focusing solely on individual impairments. His work reflects a deep commitment to disability rights, accessibility, and social inclusion. To learn more about Ian's background, expertise, and accomplishments, visit his full biography.