It is fitting that Dr. Roberta (Bobbie) Tundermann's visit to Bermuda for the anniversary dinner of the Altrusa Club of Bermuda would involve a trip to the WindReach Recreational Village this week.

Dr. Tundermann is the District One Governor of Altrusa International, under which the Bermuda chapter falls. Here for its anniversary dinner last night, which marked the local club's 51 years as a charter member, Dr. Tundermann was also on hand when the club presented a cheque for $3,000 to WindReach the day before to help fund an illuminated bubble lamp for their multisensory room.

The lamp is designed to stimulate the senses of physically and mentally challenged. As a school psychologist, Dr. Tundermann specialises in learning behaviour, social interactions and, in particular, bullying prevention.

"They (Altrusa Club of Bermuda) know what I do for a profession, so they thought I would really be interested in this project," said Dr. Tundermann of the donation to WindReach and the trip to the facility.

"Sensory experiences are very important for helping children of all kinds of disabilities."

Dr. Tundermann met WindReach founder, Alexander (Sandy) Mitchell, and was then given a guided tour of the nearly four acre facility by executive director Jacqueline Horsfield.

Mr. Mitchell founded Windreach in Bermuda in 1995 "to provide recreation, education and work experience for individuals, no matter what their level of ability".

"I think it is an excellent facility with the wide variety of offerings they have," said an impressed Dr. Tundermann afterwards.

`I can see the potential for helping a lot of people at a facility like this. The sensory room is remarkable, I've never seen anything like that before.

"I don't know of one near me where I live. I thought it was interesting and the sense of sight and sound and feeling you can get in that room is great. It was an excellent visit."

Miranda Mello, activities coordinator at WindReach, said: "One thing I always like to note about this room is it is not goal orientated. When you bring an adult or child in here you are not expecting to gain anything, but I can tell you of every individual who comes into this room, 90 percent of them have achieved something they have never done before."

Mrs. Horsfield thanked Altrusa Club for their generous donation and assured them the second bubble lamp would be a welcome addition to the room.

"It's going to be a key piece in this room, it's an expensive piece of equipment," she said.

Dr. Tundermann has been a school psychologist in Connecticut for 24 years and is a recipient of the Connecticut School Psychologist of the Year award in 1993. She is presently the psychologist at Duffy Elementary School in West Hartford, Connecticut where she has worked for the past 13 years.

"My school has an innovative programme that fully integrates disabled children within regular classrooms," said Dr. Tundermann of the school which has about 600 students.

"So we have classrooms that have a regular education teacher, special education teacher and a paraprofessional and about one third of the class are learning disabled children and the other two thirds are regular children. The children with severe learning disabilities are able to be a part of mainstream as much as possible but they still have the assistance of a special education and a paraprofessional when they need it.

"So my school has about 100 severely learning disabled and severely language disabled children, some of whom also have other disabilities and are in wheelchairs."

Dr. Tundermann can identify with what she saw at WindReach, which is completely wheelchair accessible.

"I work a lot with an occupation therapist, having kids get deep pressure kinds of activity," she explained.

"We have weighted pillows and put them on the children's laps and it gives them a sense of peace and quiet so they can sit and learn. They need a lot of extra sensory stimulation to help them integrate into the environment. They (challenged children) process their environment differently from other people. It's a very new and exciting field working with learning disabled children and children with pervasive developmental disabilities."