Basal stimulation is a rehabilitation and therapy concept for children, adolescents and adults with profound intellectual disabilities and those in a state of minimal awareness. The aim of basal stimulation is to provide stimuli from the environment as well as to compensate for the lack of experience of independent movement and participation in the environment. Through basal stimulation, we aim to stimulate the development of the profoundly disabled person through numerous environmental stimuli and multisensory experiences. In addition, by means of appropriate positioning and applied stimuli, we help the patient to feel his or her own body – body perception.
A.Fröhlich’s BASE STIMULATION was born in the 1970s in Germany at the Special Care Centre (Landstuhl). It is primarily a rehabilitation and support concept for children, adolescents and adults with profound mental handicaps, i.e. who are highly dependent on the family and the people who work with them. People with profound disabilities communicate with people and with the environment primarily through their own bodies and need special educational offers that take into account their biographical aspects, their real and special needs and their communication abilities. This pedagogical proposal primarily aims to stimulate the maximum development of the profoundly handicapped person, proposing numerous environmental stimuli and multisensory experiences that facilitate the development of an awareness of their own existence. The world of the profoundly handicapped person is very limited and focused primarily on close bodily contact, which gives them (if only in a minimal way) the opportunity to explore it.
BASIC STIMULATION helps to compensate for the profoundly impaired person’s lack of own life experience and, by means of suggestions for his/her own activity, valorises his/her own movements (even minimal ones) in a maximally 1/4 BASE STIMULATION – ARTICLE way, thus reinforcing its meaning and purpose. By means of his own activity and appropriately selected stimuli, he helps the profoundly handicapped person to come into contact with his own body and the outside world. Through one’s own body and its contact with the environment, the process of constant change between I and the WORLD is facilitated. Furthermore, BASE STIMULATION deals with the creation of a suitable, harmonious environment that helps the person to perceive himself as an active person, even if this activity is (by our standards) minimal. BASEAL STIMULATION is at the same time a practical pedagogical concept and makes it possible – after taking courses – to make an educational intervention in a short time. It is intended for the following professionals: pedagogues, educators, speech therapists, physiotherapists etc. Courses are held throughout Europe. The concept has almost 40 years of proven practice in everyday life and applied therapy with children, adolescents, adults and elderly people with profound mental disabilities. (www.srnis.pl)