ASI Wise & Sensory Project

Toward Neuro-affirming Assessment: Balancing Norms with Ladders, Spiders, Grids, Tracks and Plans

Why this matters

People seek assessments for support, not labels. Yet most health systems decide who qualifies for help by comparing an individual to a constructed norm. These measures are useful for service planning, but they can miss what matters most to the person: how they experience their body, their day, their environments, and what helps them participate.

The tension we cannot ignore

Normative data is still required. Commissioners and panels ask for scores, percentiles, and cut-offs to demonstrate need and unlock resources.
Neuroaffirming practice demands more. A strengths-based, identity-affirming approach starts from difference, not deficit. It prioritises participation, self-understanding, relationships, and context.

At present, systems have not caught up. So a fully neuro-affirming assessment pathway rarely exists end-to-end.

What a neuro-affirming assessment would include

If we design for dignity and participation, an assessment would:

Treat neurodiversity as a valid way of being.
Blend multiple sources of knowledge: the person’s goals and story, observation across contexts, co-produced visuals, and, when necessary, selective standardised tools.
Map sensory patterns™ to daily occupations, environments and supports that enable participation.
Be collaborative from the start. The person chooses who is involved, how findings are represented, and what gets shared.
Produce practical, co-owned recommendations that are easy to implement at home, school, work, and in the community.

The bridge we can use now

Until systems change, we can balance requirements with co-produced tools that make sense to the person:

Sensory Ladders® capture personalised states and helpful actions across the day, supporting self-regulation and shared understanding.
Sensory Spiders™ map sensory inputs and patterns in a single visual so priorities and preferences are transparent.
Sensory Grids™ organise observations, ideas and trials into an at-a-glance plan that can be tested and refined.
Sensory Tracks and Sensory About Me Plans record what we try, what works, and how supports generalise to real life.

These tools:

Shift the focus from deficit to participation and agency.
Create a shared language for families, educators, clinicians and the person.
Guide intervention with clear, testable steps.
Complement numbers with narrative, giving context to scores and making recommendations meaningful.

How to “hold both” in practice

Begin with the person. Clarify goals, values, stressors and hopeful outcomes before you select measures.
Use standardised tools selectively. Choose the smallest set that answers the service question. Explain limits and interpretive care.
Co-produce visuals. Build the Ladder, Spider or Grid together. Keep it living and update as insights grow.
Triangulate. Integrate numbers, observation and co-produced tools into one coherent story that links sensory patterns™ to participation.
Write for action. Convert insights into Tracks and Plans that specify who will do what, where, when and how we will review.
Evidence impact. Pair functional outcomes and participation notes with any required scores at review, so commissioners see both resource need and real-world benefit.

Language you can use with commissioners and panels

“Our pathway meets service requirements for objective evidence while remaining person led. We include the necessary standardised measures to evidence need. Alongside these, we co-produce Sensory Ladders®, Spiders™, Grids and About Me Plans that translate findings into daily participation. This balance respects neurodiversity, improves engagement, and provides clear, actionable recommendations that are tracked and reviewed.”

Smith, 2025

What changes when we do this

The person sees themselves in the assessment.
Families, educators and colleagues know what to do on Monday morning.
Services still get the data they need to allocate support, but decisions are informed by a richer understanding of function and fit.
Over time, the co-produced evidence base grows, making the case for system-level adoption of truly neuro-affirming pathways.

A practical starter kit

One page Purpose and Priorities sheet written with the person.
Selected norm-referenced and criterion-referenced tools where required.
A co-produced Sensory Spider™ and Sensory Ladder®.
A Sensory Grid™ that links patterns to participation goals.
A Sensory Track and About Me Plan with clear actions, review dates and success markers.

Final thought

We do not need to wait for perfect systems to deliver better assessments. We move practice towards neuro affirmation by pairing the required normative data with co-produced tools such as Sensory Ladders®, Sensory Spiders™, Sensory Grid™s, Sensory Tracks and About Me Plans. It is practical, relational and respectful, and it helps people take part in the lives they want to live.