Freeze
A protective state that may need safety, time and reduced demand.
How Sensory Ladders work
Start with curiosity, not a template.
The ladder is the visible part. The deeper process is listening, noticing, making shared meaning, trying support in real life and learning together.
States, not emotions
Five states offer a familiar starting point.
The example order can help people begin, but it is not a moral scale and it is never a fixed requirement. No rung is a reward or a punishment.
One familiar starting point
Freeze
Overalert
Calm and alert
Underalert
Sleep
The words, images, number of rungs and supports are shaped with the person.
Overalert
The nervous system may be preparing to act or move away.
Calm and alert
Often a more available state for connection and participation.
Underalert
Alertness may be reduced and additional support or recovery may help.
Sleep
Deep rest is a necessary body state, not an absence of participation.
A person may use two rungs or ten. They may prefer different words, no colours, a circular map, photographs, objects or an entirely different metaphor. Flexibility is part of the method.
The full process
From noticing to participation.
Each step stays anchored in the person’s own knowledge. The prompts are invitations for shared reflection, not questions that must be answered on demand.
- 01
Begin with participation
Start with what the person wants or needs to do. A ladder has a purpose when it helps make a real activity, relationship, transition, rest or daily routine more possible.
What matters to the person, and what currently gets in the way?
- 02
Notice state without blame
Notice alertness, movement, posture, body signals, communication, attention, rest and availability. Stay curious about protective responses and what may not be visible from the outside.
What might the body be communicating in this moment?
- 03
Create shared meaning
Choose words, pictures, objects, characters, numbers, colours or AAC that the person can recognise and use. The theme belongs to them, not to the professional or template.
How can this person show where they are, especially when words are hard?
- 04
Explore the whole context
Look at sensory input alongside the person, environment, activity and relational response. Timing, expectation, uncertainty, health, trauma and previous experience may all matter.
What is the body, place, activity or interaction asking the person to manage?
- 05
Co-produce support
Explore support the person can choose, support another person can offer and changes the environment can make. Consent, safety, dignity and access come before a list of strategies.
What helps this person, in this state, for this activity?
- 06
Try it in everyday life
Use the ladder during ordinary moments, not only after distress has escalated. Notice whether support improves comfort, connection, choice or meaningful participation.
Did this make the next part of life more reachable?
- 07
Review and keep changing
Use brief check-ins, Sensory Tracks or shared reflection to notice patterns. The ladder can change with age, health, setting, confidence, communication and lived experience.
What have we learned, and what needs to be different next time?
The ladder in context
The person is never the only thing we examine.
Sensory Ladders sit within a wider embodied and participation-focused understanding. The PEAR TREE™ Lens helps us hold the person, environment, activity and relational response together.
Person
Body state, sensory patterns, health, communication, identity, history, strengths and what matters.
Environment
Sound, light, movement, touch, space, predictability, access, culture and the wider system.
Activity
Meaning, timing, pace, sensory qualities, motor demands, choice and opportunity to take part.
Relational response
Tone, proximity, trust, co-regulation, power, consent and what another person does next.
Four connected parts
Regulation, perception, praxis and participation.
Sensory Ladders® are more than a way to describe regulation. They help connect body state and sensory experience with understanding, readiness for action and everyday doing.
Regulation
What state is the nervous system in, and what may support comfort, connection or availability for this moment?
Perception
How is sensory information being noticed and understood, and what may feel unclear, intense or difficult to organise?
Praxis
Is the person able to form an idea, plan, sequence and carry through what they want or need to do?
Participation
What matters to the person, what is getting in the way, and what could improve the fit around them?
Protecting the intent
A Sensory Ladder is not a behaviour ladder.
The tool was developed to support understanding, communication and participation. It should never become another way to judge, control or publicly rank a person.
It is not
- a red means bad and green means good system
- a reward, sanction or compliance chart
- a demand to move towards calm
- a fixed list of strategies for everyone
- a substitute for assessment
It can be
- a personal language for body state
- a way to ask for support sooner
- a shared plan for difficult moments
- a guide to environmental change
- a bridge towards participation
Connected tools
State is only one part of the picture.
Sensory Ladders work alongside other free Sensory Project tools. Each helps answer a different question without reducing the person to a score.
State and shared response
Sensory Ladders®
Where might I be now, and what support could help from here?
Sensory preferences
Sensory Spiders™
What sensory input do I notice, seek, value, avoid or find difficult?
Pattern and context
Sensory Grids™
How do sensory patterns change across activities, places and demands?
Gentle pattern tracking
Sensory Tracks™
What happens across time, and where could support arrive sooner?
Voice and communication
About Me Plans
What do I want others to understand about me and respectful support?
Embodied formulation
PEAR TREE™ Lens
How do person, environment, activity and relational response fit together?
Right support, right level
Awareness can open a pathway without blurring boundaries.
Universal awareness
A shared language for noticing sensory experience, listening to the person and making proportionate changes within everyday roles.
Targeted support
More personalised reflection and planning when sensory patterns are having a clearer impact on activity, comfort or participation.
Specialist assessment
Occupational therapy or comprehensive sensory integration assessment when complexity, risk or impact means more is needed.
Sensory Ladders® are not Ayres Sensory Integration® therapy. Ayres Sensory Integration is a defined specialist assessment and intervention approach with its own training and fidelity requirements.
Read alongside the process
Connect the method with position, research and participation.
These published Sensory Project articles add context without turning a practical framework into a claim that goes beyond the evidence.
Professional position
Sensory Ladders and Ayres Sensory Integration
Read how the approaches connect, where they differ and why scope remains important.
Read article Research updateSensory Ladders highlighted in Cygnet research
See what the publication contributes and the limits of what can be concluded.
Read article ParticipationFrom sensory scores to participation
Explore what newer research asks practitioners to notice in everyday life.
Read article