How it works
- Set up your mixing desk. Each slider is a kind of input: sound, light, crowds, touch, smell, movement, warmth and talking. Put the knob where it gets too much for you. Each step has a word with an example, such as loud: a full canteen.
- Do you actually seek out some input, like music or movement? Choose I seek this out. Then you also set when it is too little.
- Play a situation, such as the supermarket on a Saturday or a birthday party in a small room. The meters move along and your bucket fills up. You see the moment it overflows.
- Take from the toolbox what might help: headphones, a place to take a break, staying for a shorter time, an agreed sign. You see straight away what it does.
- Make your sensory passport: your panel, your hardest situations, what helps and how others can help you. Print it, or save it as a file.
For
For anyone who quickly gets overstimulated, or who actually seeks out sensory input. This can play a part in autism, ADHD, high sensitivity, acquired brain injury, migraine or after burnout, for example. You do not need a diagnosis or a label to use it.
How much sensory input someone can handle differs from person to person and from day to day. After a bad night or a busy week, the bucket often overflows sooner. That is why you can also make a second panel, for a hard day.
The bucket
The image of a bucket is often used to explain how sensory input adds up. Every sound, every question and every lamp adds a little. Rest lets it empty again. If more comes in than can drain out, it overflows. Then you might get tired or irritable, or you shut down.
The levels in the situations are an estimate for an ordinary day. Does a situation not fit you? Then make your own, for example your work or a family visit.
Using it together
Under Together there are questions for a care worker, a parent, a teacher, an employer or a housemate.
Two panels side by side show differences, for example between housemates.
Good to know
- Everything works with the keyboard. Use Tab to go to a knob on the panel, and the arrow keys to move it up or down.
- Too much and too little are always shown in words as well, with a pattern: hatched is too much, dotted is too little.
- There is deliberately no sound. Playing an example of a busy place could be too much in itself.
- Does sensory input make your daily life very hard, or are you worried? Talk to your GP or to someone you trust.
Your data
What you set up stays in this page on your own device. Nothing is sent and nothing is stored in your browser. If you close or refresh the page, everything is gone.
- The file goes onto your device, in the place you choose. Your panels, your situations and your passport are in it. Open it here again later with Open a file.
- Copy the text puts your passport on your clipboard. You decide where to paste it.
- If you choose ‘Save as PDF’ when printing, your passport is saved as a file on your device.
