Anna Jean Ayres (July 18, 1920 – December 16, 1988) was an American occupational therapist, educational psychologist and advocate for individuals with special needs.

[3] She was also a faculty member in the occupational therapy and special education departments at the University of Southern California from 1955 to 1984.

Building on the work of Charles S. Sherrington and others, she began developing the theory and associated intervention techniques of sensory integration in the 1950s by examining the relationship between the brain and behavior.

[4] She originated the theory to "explain the relationship between deficits in interpreting sensation from the body and the environment and difficulties with academic or motor learning.

[5][6] She published numerous factor analyses of assessment findings that allowed her to identify patterns of sensory integrative dysfunction,[7][8] which were later confirmed by other researchers[9][10] and expanded upon (e.g. in the context of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder[11]).

She has been described by her students and colleagues as "a pioneer in affective neuroscience" (Schneider, 2005), a "developmental theorist" (Knox, 2005), "one of the original perceptual motor theorists" (Smith Roley, 2005), "a pioneer in our understanding of developmental dyspraxia" (Cermak, 2005), and "an astute observer of human behavior and neurological development" (Bauman, 2005).

[4] She was dedicated to the promotion of science-driven intervention strategies leading a better quality of life for people with disabilities and their families.

The employing of neural mechanisms to enhance motor development is now well established; the current area of major growth and controversy lies in the use of neurological constructs to aid in understanding and ameliorating cognitive functions such as learning disabilities; the next step may well be a more fruitful attack on emotional and behavior disorders.