Use
Use Sensory Ladders® collaboratively with children, young people, adults, families, teams and communities.
Using and sharing Sensory Ladders®
Shared freely. Used thoughtfully. Provenance protected.
Sensory Ladders® have always been about helping people, families, communities and workforces build shared understanding. We want the learning to travel. We also want the history, co-production and authorship of the work to travel with it.
This page explains how you can use and share Sensory Ladders®, how to acknowledge the original work, and when to talk with us before adapting, publishing or commercialising a resource.
Open by design
Protection does not mean closing the door.
From the beginning, Sensory Ladders® grew through conversation, collaboration and people trying ideas in everyday life. Core learning has deliberately been made freely available because sensory understanding should not depend on someone’s ability to pay.
Protecting the name and provenance is not about stopping an individual, family, teacher, therapist or support worker from making and using a Sensory Ladder. Quite the opposite. Clear attribution helps us keep sharing resources generously while making it possible to distinguish the original project from later adaptations, commercial products and separately developed approaches.
It also matters because Sensory Ladders® are not a fixed behaviour programme or universal hierarchy. They are personalised and co-produced ways of noticing body state, understanding sensory experience and identifying what may support participation.
Four simple principles
Use it. Credit it. Adapt with care. Ask before commercialising.
Credit
Keep the Sensory Ladders® name and its documented provenance visible when you teach, present, share or write about the work.
Adapt with care
Personalisation is expected. Turning the approach into a different fixed model or hierarchy is something different and should be described as such.
Ask
If you want to publish, sell, licence, translate, digitally reproduce or build a commercial product around the work, please talk with us.
Everyday use
What are you welcome to do?
Sensory Ladders® are made to be used. Personalisation is part of the approach, not an exception to it.
Individual, family and professional use
You are welcome to use our freely available Sensory Ladders® learning and resources to support collaborative reflection and participation.
This includes making an individual’s own ladder, exploring their words for different states, identifying sensory supports together, and using the ladder across everyday environments and activities.
Clinical, education and support settings
Therapists, educators, healthcare teams, families and other members of the workforce can use Sensory Ladders® within their ordinary work with individuals and teams.
The resource should remain personalised and participation focused, with professional scope and boundaries respected.
Share the free learning
Please share links to our free learning, articles and resources. Linking people back to the original resource helps keep information current while preserving authorship and context.
Talk and write about the approach
Sensory Ladders® can be discussed in teaching, academic work, service development, presentations and professional conversation. Please acknowledge the source and use the registered name accurately.
When to talk with us
Some uses need a conversation first.
We are usually very happy to explore thoughtful collaboration. Permission becomes particularly important where somebody else’s product, organisation or commercial offer could be understood as an official Sensory Ladders® resource.
Commercial products
Workbooks, card sets, trackers, journals, apps, digital tools, subscriptions or other products using the Sensory Ladders® name or substantially reproducing project materials.
Paid training
Courses, workshops or programmes specifically teaching Sensory Ladders® as a named approach, particularly where materials are reproduced or certification is implied.
Publication
Books, manuals, published assessment materials, paid downloads or other publications reproducing or substantially adapting original Sensory Ladders® content.
Translation
We love translation, but language and cultural adaptation are collaborative processes. Please join our translation project rather than creating an unofficial translated edition.
Digital reproduction
Apps, software, AI tools, online platforms or interactive products embedding the ladder, its graphics or substantial parts of the original resource.
New branded adaptations
If you develop your own named model, tracker or framework from the approach, it needs to remain clearly distinguishable from Sensory Ladders® and from official project resources.
Documented provenance
Sensory Ladders® have a history.
The name and resources sit within a documented occupational therapy practice history extending back more than 25 years.
Late 1990s
Sensory Levels developed through work in adult mental health and
learning disability services.
2001
The first Sensory Ladders were developed through collaborative
clinical work.
2002
The published Sensory Processing Ladder is identified as
© Kathryn Smith 2002.
2006
Brown, Shankar, Smith, Turner and Wyndham Smith published
“Sensory processing disorder in mental health” in
Occupational Therapy News.
2009
Brown, Shankar and Smith published the peer reviewed paper
“Borderline personality disorder and sensory processing impairment”
in Progress in Neurology and Psychiatry.
Today
Sensory Ladders® continue to be developed through practice,
co-production, international learning, translation and research.
Attribution
A simple acknowledgement is usually enough.
If you are referring to Sensory Ladders® in teaching, presentations, professional resources or written work, please make the origin visible.
Suggested short attribution
Sensory Ladders® were developed by occupational therapist Kath Smith
from 2001, evolving from earlier Sensory Levels work. The Sensory
Processing Ladder was published as © Kathryn Smith 2002, with the
approach described in Brown et al. (2006) and Brown, Shankar &
Smith (2009). Sensory Ladders® is a registered UK trade mark,
UK00004165790.
For shorter resources
Sensory Ladders® © Kathryn Smith. Sensory Ladders® is a registered
UK trade mark, UK00004165790. Learn more at sensoryladders.org.
Copyright and trade mark
Different protections do different jobs.
Sensory Ladders®
SENSORY LADDERS is a registered UK trade mark owned by
Kath Smith, UK Trade Mark No. UK00004165790.
Copyright
Original written materials, graphics, diagrams, learning resources
and other original expressions of the work are protected by
copyright. The published Sensory Processing Ladder carries the
attribution © Kathryn Smith 2002.
The idea
Sensory experiences, changes in alertness and sensory integration
are not owned by any one person or organisation. Our concern is not
to claim ownership of sensory science. Protection relates to the
Sensory Ladders® name and original expression, materials and
published work.
Adaptation
Sensory Ladders® are intended to be personalised with the person.
Personalisation is different from creating a new commercial model,
fixed hierarchy or branded product derived from the original work.
Keeping the meaning clear
A Sensory Ladder is not a universal five level nervous system hierarchy.
Every Sensory Ladder can look different because every person, body, environment and participation story is different.
The approach supports people to develop language for their own sensory and embodied states, recognise patterns and explore what may help at different moments in everyday life.
A person’s ladder might include underalert, overalert, freeze, calm and alert, sleep, or entirely different personally meaningful descriptions. It is not necessary to fit everybody into the same number of stages.
Contemporary interpretations are welcome.
People may bring other theories and perspectives to their own practice. When this happens, we simply ask that newer interpretations are distinguished from the documented origins and theoretical foundations of Sensory Ladders®.
This allows ideas to continue evolving without rewriting the history of the original work.
Why this matters
Attribution is about more than ownership.
People can find the source
Clear attribution lets people return to the original learning, understand the context and access resources that remain current.
Co-production remains visible
Sensory Ladders® were shaped with people over time. Accurate provenance protects that shared practice history rather than reducing it to a newly invented product.
Adaptations stay transparent
New ideas can be recognised as new ideas. People can understand what belongs to the original approach and what has been added later.
Licensing and collaboration
Have an idea? Talk with us.
We would rather begin with a conversation than a restriction. Sensory Ladders® have grown because people have shared ideas, challenged assumptions and helped make resources more useful in different communities.
We can explore
Translation, research, educational partnerships, organisational implementation, publications, digital development, new resources and other collaborative opportunities.
A licence may be appropriate
Where Sensory Ladders® forms part of a commercial product, publication, paid programme or separately branded resource, a simple written licence can make permissions, attribution and boundaries clear for everyone.
Something not quite right?
Help us keep the public record accurate.
Sensory Ladders® have travelled widely. Sometimes attribution is lost, terminology changes, an older resource is copied, or an adaptation becomes separated from its original source.
Most of the time, a friendly conversation is all that is needed. If you notice Sensory Ladders® being attributed incorrectly, reproduced without context, described as someone else’s model, or used within a commercial resource in a way that may cause confusion, please let us know.
i
Our starting point is conversation.
Protecting provenance is compatible with generosity. We want people to use the work, question it and help it grow while keeping authorship, evidence, history and later adaptations transparent.
Published foundations
Early publications help preserve the practice history.
Brown, S., Shankar, R., Smith, K., Turner, J. & Wyndham Smith, E. (2006). Sensory processing disorder in mental health. Occupational Therapy News, May, 28–29.
Brown, S., Shankar, R. & Smith, K. (2009). Borderline personality disorder and sensory processing impairment. Progress in Neurology and Psychiatry, 13, 10–16. DOI: 10.1002/pnp.127.
The Sensory Processing Ladder reproduced in the 2009 publication is expressly identified as © Kathryn Smith 2002.
Keep sharing
The aim is not to put Sensory Ladders® behind a wall.
It is to keep the door open while carrying the history with us. Learn freely, use thoughtfully, personalise with people and help us keep the provenance visible as Sensory Ladders® continue to travel.