Learn freely
Use the official free learning and paper resources for your own understanding, reflection or continuing professional learning.
Sensory Ladders® attribution and use guidance
Share with care. Credit clearly. Keep the work person-led.
Core Sensory Ladders® learning and paper resources are shared freely because the project is built on infectious generosity. Free access does not remove the history, values, consent or attribution that hold the work together.
States, not labels. Support, not control. Participation, not performance.
The simple answer
Use the ideas. Name the source. Protect the person.
You are welcome to use the free learning and create an individual Sensory Ladder with a person.
Keep the person’s language, communication, choices and everyday participation at the centre. Acknowledge Sensory Ladders® (Smith, 2001), link people back to the official project and ask before reproducing, translating, publishing or selling project materials.
This page distinguishes personal and practice use from publication, organisational reproduction and commercial use.
Use with confidence
Four things you are welcome to do.
Infectious generosity works when access grows and the origin, values and personal meaning of the work remain visible.
Build one together
Create a personal ladder using the person’s own words, images, AAC, objects, metaphors and forms of communication.
Share the official link
Help others find the project by linking to the official hub or free learning rather than uploading an uncredited copy elsewhere.
Acknowledge the source
Name Sensory Ladders® (Smith, 2001), Kath Smith and The Sensory Project when teaching, presenting or writing about the approach.
Ready-to-use wording
Choose an attribution and copy it.
Use the version that fits your context. You can add the date you accessed the website or adapt the reference style required by your organisation, journal or university.
Short acknowledgement
For slides, handouts, webpages and social posts.
Using Sensory Ladders® (Smith, 2001), developed by Kath Smith through occupational therapy practice and co-production. The Sensory Project: https://sensoryproject.org/sensory-ladders/
On a personal resource
For a ladder made with an individual or group.
Created together using Sensory Ladders® (Smith, 2001) and the free guidance from The Sensory Project: https://sensoryproject.org/sensory-ladders/
Reference list
Adapt this to the referencing style you are using.
Smith, K. (2001). Sensory Ladders® [co-produced practice resource]. The Sensory Project. https://sensoryproject.org/sensory-ladders/
Keep personal use personal
The ladder belongs in the person’s life, not in a fixed template.
Keep doing this
- Build with the person rather than completing a ladder about them.
- Use language and communication the person recognises.
- Explore the person, environment, activity and relational response.
- Connect support with meaningful participation and everyday life.
- Review and change the ladder as understanding develops.
Please avoid
- Turning colours or rungs into good, bad, success or failure.
- Using the ladder as a behaviour, compliance or reward chart.
- Assigning somebody else’s words, states or supports to the person.
- Presenting a Sensory Ladder as a diagnosis or standardised assessment.
- Suggesting that using the resource confers clinical competency.
Contact us before you publish or distribute
When written permission or a project conversation is needed.
The free resources are intended to widen access. A conversation is needed when the project name, logo, learning, templates or co-produced content will become part of a new published, translated, organisational or commercial product.
Purchased downloads: follow the licence shown with the individual product. A personal-use purchase does not normally permit the file to be transferred, uploaded to a shared drive or learning platform, or distributed to other users.
Research, teaching and service development
Tell us enough to understand the proposed use.
Early contact helps us protect attribution, identify existing work, avoid duplicated translations and connect you with relevant project learning or collaborators.
- Who you are and the organisation involved
- What you want to use, reproduce or adapt
- The audience, format and intended outcome
- Whether access will be free or paid
- The language, country and length of use
- For research, the protocol, ethics approval and consent arrangements
If you are researching Sensory Ladders®, cite the exact resource or version used, describe any adaptation transparently and share the resulting publication or learning with the project where possible.
A clear professional boundary
Using Sensory Ladders® does not make someone a sensory specialist.
Sensory Ladders® can support shared awareness, communication, advocacy and everyday planning. They do not diagnose sensory differences or replace occupational therapy assessment, comprehensive sensory integration assessment or specialist intervention when these are needed.
Universal use
People, families, communities and workforces can use the free learning to notice sensory experience and make thoughtful, proportionate changes within their role.
Specialist support
Greater complexity, risk or impact on everyday participation may need occupational therapy, embodied formulation or specialist sensory integration assessment and intervention.
Infectious generosity
Give credit. Widen access. Return the learning.
The project grows when people share official resources, acknowledge the work, protect personal stories and bring questions, adaptations and learning back into the community.