Functional Communication & Access Survey | Fillable AAC Pre-Assessment Tool

Functional Communication & Access Survey | Fillable AAC Pre-Assessment Tool

Gather meaningful, family-informed information before your AAC assessment with the Functional Communication & Access Survey, a comprehensive pre-assessment tool designed to help clinicians better understand individuals with complex communication needs.

This updated survey helps families, caregivers, and other familiar communication partners share valuable insights into a learner's current communication skills, communicative functions, preferences, participation, and access needs across everyday environments.

The survey explores:

• Current Communication Methods: How the learner communicates using speech, gestures, facial expressions, eye gaze, body movements, vocalizations, AAC systems, and other methods.

• Communicative Functions: How the learner expresses requests, protests, preferences, emotions, social interactions, questions, and other communicative intentions.

• Communication Partners & Environments: Who understands the learner best, where communication occurs, and which situations support or limit participation.

• Interests & Motivation: Preferred people, activities, routines, objects, and experiences that can help create meaningful assessment opportunities.

• Receptive Communication & Helpful Supports: Strategies that support understanding, including visual cues, modeling, processing time, familiar routines, and environmental modifications.

• AAC Access Considerations: Observations related to vision, hearing, motor abilities, positioning, sensory preferences, fatigue, and regulation that may influence AAC access.

• Support Needs & Emerging Skills: What the learner can accomplish with additional time, modeling, prompting, positioning, or other supports.

• Strengths, Priorities & Family Goals: Communication priorities, family perspectives, and hopes for future AAC use.

Why Use This Survey?

Administering this survey before your AAC assessment allows you to gather valuable information from the people who know the learner best. It can help you:

• Reduce the time needed for background interviews during assessment sessions.

• Identify existing communication strengths and emerging skills.

• Recognize communication behaviors that may be subtle or difficult to observe in unfamiliar settings.

• Plan individualized, motivating assessment activities.

• Identify potential AAC access considerations and helpful supports.

• Prioritize direct assessment activities and make more effective use of your time with the learner.

• Incorporate family perspectives into a dynamic, participation-focused assessment process.

Product Features

8-page fillable PDF featuring clickable checkboxes and typed-response fields.

• Complete electronically, save, and print.

• Share with families or other familiar communication partners before an assessment.

• Use responses to guide follow-up interviews, direct assessment, and collaborative planning.

Licensing & Use

Your purchase includes a single-professional-use license.

Professionals may share the survey with families and caregivers as part of their own assessment and intervention services at no additional cost. However, the digital resource may not be redistributed to other professionals, uploaded to shared professional resource libraries, or resold. Other professionals should obtain their own copy.

Please note: This is an information-gathering and assessment-planning resource, not a standardized assessment or diagnostic instrument.

Preview images show sample pages and do not include the full survey. The complete eight-page fillable PDF is included with your purchase.