Sensory Services

It’s important to demonstrate your commitment to sensory inclusion across your organization’s spaces and practices, including community engagement and ongoing education for staff. Some best practices are listed below:

• Engage the local neurodivergent community: Develop relationships with your local neurodivergent community and advocacy groups and request their feedback to ensure your sensory services reflect the real needs and preferences of the community. Compensate people for their time and expertise. Integrate input from diverse local communities to create sensory services that reflect a broad range of cultural interests, values, and needs.
• Provide comprehensive staff training: Train all staff in neurodivergent awareness, sensory and cognitive processing, and effective communication strategies, ensuring that they understand the needs of neurodivergent visitors. Equip staff with the tools to recognize and support sensory and cognitive processing variations and engage with neurodivergent individuals respectfully, using appropriate language and terminology. It’s important to consider these practices during all hours, not just only during sensory-friendly or relaxed events.
• Promote inclusive workplace practices: Training should focus not only on audience support and engagement, but also on internal practices, such as hiring, onboarding, and internal communications. Reflect on workplace culture to identify and address any rigid policies or workflows that may not accommodate neurodivergent employees. Question whether tasks can be done differently and ensure that accommodations are seen as a natural part of the organizational culture rather than as an inconvenience.

It is also important to offer specific sensory tools, resources, and services to include as many neurodivergent visitors and staff as possible. Ideas and best practices are listed below:

• Provide sensory toolkits: Make sensory and cognitive tools available at the visitor services desk or similar location during regular operating hours to support neurodivergent visitors’ engagement. These tools may include noise-cancelling headphones, earplugs, visors, listening devices, guidebooks, fidget toys, and sensory bags with various materials to enhance the experience.
• Offer sensory bags: Provide sensory bags that can be checked out at the visitor services desk. These portable bags should contain artifacts or materials that help with self-regulation and engagement. For example, an aquarium sensory bag might include ocean-themed objects like squishy marine animals, shells, coloring sheets, or animal cards. Sensory bags should align with the content of the experience, ensuring that the items help the user connect with the theme or subject matter of the venue.
• Ensure quick access to sensory resources: Design sensory bags for easy portability, allowing visitors to carry them on their body for quick access to calming or engaging materials throughout their visit. Avoid including items that do not enhance or relate to the experience, as these can become distractor objects.
• Offer other accessibility services: Make sure all visitors are provided with information and choice on other accessibility services you provide, such as touch tours or verbal descriptions, which may also support their participation.

Flexibility is key to accessibility and universal design. Consider making your organization more inclusive through the following practices:

• Implement flexible ticketing: Allow visitors to leave and re-enter the venue on the same day, ensuring that neurodivergent individuals can take breaks as needed without feeling pressured to complete their visit in one sitting.
• See the Hub page on Ticketing and Admission for more information.
• Accommodate dietary needs and schedules: Provide areas where visitors can bring their own food, allowing neurodivergent individuals or other visitors who may have dietary sensitivities or strict eating schedules to stay in your building. If you provide food services, ensure food options are available to suit a variety of dietary preferences and restrictions. See the Hub page on Food Service for more information.

Pre-visit materials can help visitors engage with all your organization has to offer. Consider the following tips for circulating this information:

• Provide pre-visit materials: Make social narratives and other pre-visit materials available on your website, helping visitors prepare and understand what to expect during their visit. These could be available in your accessibility page, as well as other “plan your visit/visitor services” pages.
• Ensure accessibility of materials: Make pre-visit resources available in multiple languages and formats to accommodate a wide range of visitors.
• Include sensory information: Provide specific information related to sensory experiences, such as noise levels or visual stimuli, to help neurodivergent visitors prepare for their experience. These could also be provided in the form of a sensory map, and made available both virtually before the visit and on site.

Remember that sensory-friendly exhibits and spaces have a vital role to play in accessibility. Create these spaces through doing the following:

• Integrate sensory options into exhibits: Offer sensory experiences like tactile objects or alternative auditory experiences to enhance visitor engagement for visitors who could benefit from additional sensory input.
• Provide alternative exhibit formats: Offer transcripts, audio descriptions, and audio options for exhibits to cater to different sensory needs.
• Provide sensory spaces: If possible, designate specific sensory spaces for visitors to take breaks. These could be permanent or temporary spaces, and they can include features like flexible seating, dimmable or softer lights, weighted blankets or lap pads, and sensory tools and activities to support comfort and self-regulation. Provide a description of the features of the space as well as expectations for its use outside the entrance as well as in online materials or pre-visit guides. When a separate space is not available, organizations can indicate in maps, sensory maps, or other communications which spaces in their facilities tend to have reduced sensory elements.

Finally, enhance your customer service practices to be more welcoming through following these tips:

• Foster a welcoming environment: Ensure all visitors feel respected and supported, creating an atmosphere where neurodivergent individuals can engage authentically with the venue.
• Be flexible with policies: Regularly review and question organizational rules to ensure that they don’t unintentionally exclude or create barriers for neurodivergent visitors. For example, evaluate the necessity of policies like no-backpack rules and consider more flexible alternatives, such as allowing backpacks to be worn in the front. Ensure that all staff understand the actual policies and are not enforcing assumptions or misinterpreting guidelines. Recognize that behaviors deemed “odd” may be important and harmless for neurodivergent visitors, and adjust practices to accommodate these visitors.
• Offer personalized support: Develop guidelines that enable staff to offer individualized assistance, adjusting strategies to suit the unique needs of each visitor.