How can I find out more about Colour Tent Therapy?
Where Colour Tent Therapy Opens the Door to the Mind
The colour tent evolved from a search for meaningful ways to meet the needs of children with profound and multiple disabilities and cerebral visual impairment.
Children with severe brain injury can experience sensory overload as they try to process and understand sensory information. The tent offers a way to reduce noise, clutter, and visual complexity, enabling each child to engage at their own level of understanding.
It is a way of seeing the world from the child’s perspective: a way to open the door to learning in a manner that respects their capabilities, pace, and sensory needs.
In 2015, a paper co-authored by Suzanne Little and Professor Gordon N. Dutton was published in the British Journal of Visual Impairment. It described two case studies in detail and reflected on how diffusely coloured tents could support attention, engagement, and understanding in children with multiple disabilities and cerebral visual impairment.
The CVI Society UK has also promoted the value of colour tents for babies and children with profound disabilities and cerebral visual impairment, sharing resources and guidance about their use on its website.
Rosemary Turner an Early Years Qualified Teacher of Vision Impairment from the Hearing and Vison Service in Stockport met Suzanne at a CVI conference in 2018 and since then has been passionately using Colour Tent Therapy (CTT) with children from a few months old to 14 years of age. Rosemary has built up a growing collection of case-studies all of which reflect progress within the five stages of CTT assessment: visual awareness, attention, location, recognition and understanding.
After consultation with Suzanne and the National CTT group, an Assessment Framework was finalised and Rosemary trialled this over a year with two classes in Valley Special School in Stockport.
The feedback from all the professionals involved in the trial was extremely positive:
“We start with CTT at the beginning of the day with one child and we feel that it has positive effects for their vision and overall experience for them for the rest of the day. It is as if sets them up/ brain stimulation rather like we would do a run!?”
“One child only used to show vision abilities whilst in the CT eg: fixing, tracking but this year we have started to see her doing these vision skills outside of the colour tent too, definitely directly after the session, but also recently beyond this”
“One child loves the CT. It has made a huge difference to her presentation too: laughing and smiling. When she knows she is transitioning in to the CT and we let her feel the Object of Reference, she now always shows excitement and anticipation as she knows she is going into the CT.”
“ It has been so helpful as the CTT can provide very useful evidence for both target setting and EHCP outcomes. It has helped us not only track small steps of progress and see this developing over time but also really see how a child uses their vision and what conditions and support ( eg their preferred visual field, motivating resource etc) can help them access learning outside of the CT and in different areas of learning too.”
And Parents included their feedback too including:
"We've noticed a clear improvement in I's visual tracking since starting colour tent therapy. At home she's following people and objects with her eyes much more consistently. It's been wonderful to see her visual awareness continue to develop.” Parents of I.
“So, we are so proud of how far R has come in the last 4 years of working with the Stockport Hearing and Vision Service, She has shown significant progress with her tracking skills, Rubys level of tolerance in the colour tent has increased greatly and now she can tolerate and enjoy an hour at a time.” Parents of R
The CTT was successful for all children, although the outcomes varied depending on each child’s individual visual needs and abilities. Every child demonstrated progress in at least one or more areas of visual development. Some children showed increased visual attention and were able to look at motivating objects for longer periods, whilst others became more visually alert and responsive to their environment once leaving the CT. A lot of children’s posture also improved and/or they were using more vocals and this was noted by their therapists. Several children also appeared calmer and more settled within the CT, allowing them to visually engage more effectively.
Across the trial, Children showed positive changes at different stages of the CTT assessment, including visual awareness, fixation, tracking, attention, and engagement. While some children made significant gains in maintaining visual focus and following objects, others showed early but important improvements in orientating towards visual stimuli and demonstrating increased interest in visual experiences.
Overall, the trial highlighted the value of CTT as an essential early intervention and inclusive resource, providing each child with opportunities to develop their visual skills at a level appropriate to their individual needs and stage of development.
Rosemary collated the key Outcomes and Observations from this trial and presented them to EfL and the Framework became ‘Live’ on their platform in October 26.
Marie Easton from St Giles School
Building on the work of Rosemary Turner and the growing evidence base for CTT, Marie Easton, Specialist SEN Teacher and Qualified Teacher of Vision Impairment at St Giles School, Retford, became interested in exploring how colour tents could support children and young people with Cerebral Visual Impairment (CVI) and profound and complex barriers to learning.
Marie first met Suzanne Little whilst working at Meldreth Manor School. Through discussions with Suzanne and through using colour tents with children and young adults, it became apparent that the benefits extended beyond visual development alone. For many learners, the tent provided a calm, safe and predictable environment where they were able to feel secure, regulate their emotions and engage more confidently with the world around them. In some cases, reducing sensory and visual distractions enabled staff to observe emerging skills, interests and responses that were not always evident within a busy learning environment.
In 2022, Marie introduced CCT with a small group of pupils at St Giles School to explore how it could be used as a specialist approach to improve access to learning. Building on previous positive outcomes, the focus was on understanding how colour tents could support each pupil's individual visual, sensory and learning needs, and how the approach could be embedded into everyday practice.
As the use of colour tents developed within school, it became increasingly important to capture progress in a meaningful and consistent way. In 2024, Marie and Rosemary worked together to explore how Suzanne Little's assessment framework could be incorporated into the EfL platform. This enabled practitioners to record photographs, videos and observations that demonstrated progress through the five stages of Colour Tent Therapy: visual awareness, attention, location, recognition and understanding.
To demonstrate the impact of this approach, Marie developed a case study following the journey of a pupil called Zac. The case study highlights how Colour Tent Therapy supported Zac's engagement, communication, understanding and access to learning over time. Using the EfL platform, evidence was captured and mapped against the five stages of assessment, providing a clear record of progress and helping to identify meaningful next steps. The platform also allowed outcomes to be linked to wider assessment frameworks and Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) targets, supporting effective target setting and demonstrating how CCT can be used as a practical teaching and learning strategy across the curriculum.
Over time, CCT has become an established part of practice at St Giles School and is now used to support pupils across pre-formal pathways. It has provided many children and young people with opportunities to engage, communicate and learn in ways that are accessible and meaningful to them. Perhaps most importantly, it encourages practitioners to slow down, view the world from the child's perspective and create opportunities for learning that build on each individual's strengths, interests and needs.