Sensory Ladders in Lockdown: How a Simple Tool Supported Families, Therapists and Frontline Workers Through the Pandemic
Looking back on a moment in time when sensory-informed care became essential for survival, regulation, and connection.
In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the world came to a standstill and familiar routines disappeared overnight, families, therapists, and healthcare professionals found themselves searching for ways to stay connected, not just with each other but with themselves. Amidst the fear, uncertainty, and isolation, Sensory Ladders quietly emerged as a lifeline.
Originally developed in 2001, Sensory Ladders are simple, co-produced tools grounded in the principles of Ayres’ Sensory Integration and enriched by psychological models such as Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT). During the COVID-19 crisis, they proved to be more than just visual aids; they became bridges: bridges to understanding, bridges to regulation, and bridges to hope.
Understanding Self-States in a Time of Global Dysregulation
As waves of anxiety rippled through homes, classrooms, hospitals and care settings, people of all ages found themselves navigating unfamiliar emotional territory. Children were unable to attend school. Adults shielding vulnerable relatives. Older people were cut off from their community and routine. Healthcare workers were witnessing unprecedented trauma.
During this time, Sensory Ladders supported people in recognising and communicating their internal states, identifying what calm looked like, what distress felt like, and what might help. With simple visuals and personalised prompts (photos, colours, music), they offered a gentle structure for individuals to name and manage their feelings. For many, this was a gentle reminder that communicating how we feel as part of self-care matters, and for the first time, they had the words and the visuals to explain how they were truly feeling.
A Digital Shift: Delivering Sensory Regulation via Telehealth
ASI Wise and Sensory Project launched a series of interactive telehealth webinars in April 2020 in response to lockdown restrictions. These sessions introduced therapists, teachers, and health professionals to the theory behind Sensory Ladders and demonstrated how to create interactive, personalised ladders online using PowerPoint and other accessible tools.
Participants learned how to embed familiar sounds, images, routines and sensory strategies into the ladders, helping clients (from young children to adults and carers) reconnect with what regulated them. Delivered with warmth and urgency, the webinar quickly became a touchstone for those striving to maintain therapeutic relationships in a suddenly remote world.
Giving Voice to Worries – When Words Were Hard to Find
For many people, especially children and adults with sensory integration differences, autism, learning disabilities, or trauma histories, the emotional impact of the pandemic was hard to express verbally. Sensory Ladders helped make the invisible visible.
Carers, parents, teachers and therapists used ladders to understand what signs of distress looked like in the people they supported, and more importantly, what they could do in response. Families created ladders together, often for the first time, building new language to name sensations, feelings, and needs. The process itself fostered connection, an antidote to the isolation of lockdown.
On the Frontlines: Regulation Tools for Healthcare Professionals
Sensory Ladders weren’t just for families at home. They also found their way into the hands (and hearts) of frontline workers. Nurses, occupational therapists, and doctors working on COVID-19 wards quietly began using ladders to manage their own emotional regulation. Many were navigating grief, trauma, and moral distress, supporting patients in their final hours without the presence of loved ones, day after day.
For some, the ladders became a morning ritual, a moment to check in with themselves before stepping onto the ward. For others, they offered a reflective tool to share in supervision or team meetings, a way to process what they were carrying. In a time when many were overwhelmed, Sensory Ladders gave permission to pause, reflect, and care for oneself.
A Moment of Shared Humanity
Looking back, the success of Sensory Ladders during COVID-19 wasn’t just about their design. It was about their message: that how we feel matters, and that naming, noticing, and nurturing those feelings is both valid and vital.
This small but mighty tool supported thousands, from young people with rising anxiety to older adults reawakened to past traumas, from carers stretched to breaking point to therapists delivering sessions from their kitchens.
It connected people, offered clarity in chaos, and helped sustain compassion, both for others and for ourselves.
Legacy and Learning: Carrying Sensory Ladders Forward
Today, Sensory Ladders continue to be used around the world. They are embedded in school routines, family life, mental health services, and clinical practice. They have grown since their humble beginning in 2001.
By 2006, the Sensory Ladders suite of tools included Sensory Spiders and Sensory Grids, all delivered freely and shared since on specialist workshops for mental health trauma-informed care, through national sensory integration and processing training providers.
The free Sensory Ladders Starter Webinars remain available for anyone, anywhere, at any time, although therapists can no longer access the accompanying Telehealth Technology Webinar (March 2020), which was created to support therapists during the pandemic.
What began as an urgent response to crisis has become a lasting contribution to inclusive, co-produced, sensory-informed care.
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