Motivation & Joy Survey | Fillable AAC Assessment & Intervention Planning Tool
Motivation & Joy Survey | Fillable AAC Assessment & Intervention Planning Tool
Discover what brings joy, connection, and motivation to individuals with complex communication needs with the Motivation & Joy Survey, a three-page, family-informed tool designed to help caregivers, clinicians, and other communication partners identify meaningful opportunities for communication learning.
This survey encourages communication partners to look beyond traditional motivators, such as toys, food, or preferred objects, and explore the people, places, activities, sensory experiences, routines, and interactions that make life enjoyable and meaningful for the communicator.
By inviting caregivers and professionals to consider experiences from the communicator's perspective, this resource helps identify authentic sources of joy and motivation that can become the foundation for engaging, individualized AAC assessment and intervention.
The Survey Explores:
Happiness & Curiosity: Experiences, activities, interactions, and discoveries that capture the communicator's attention, spark curiosity, and bring happiness.
Play & Preferred Activities: Activities the communicator enjoys for extended periods, engages with briefly, or returns to repeatedly.
Sensory Preferences & Experiences: Movements, sounds, sights, textures, and other sensory experiences that bring excitement, comfort, calm, or enjoyment.
Favorite People, Pets & Places: Familiar people, relationships, and environments that contribute to positive experiences and meaningful participation.
Joyful Interactions & Shared Experiences: Activities and interactions that inspire smiles, laughter, connection, and shared enjoyment.
Caregiver Perspectives & Connection: Experiences that bring caregivers joy, moments when they feel most connected with the communicator, and activities they enjoy together.
Opportunities for Communication Learning: Meaningful contexts that can support vocabulary selection, AAC modeling, shared attention, interaction, and communication development.
Why Use This Survey?
Understanding what motivates a communicator is about more than identifying preferred rewards or incentives. Joy, curiosity, connection, and meaningful participation can provide powerful contexts for communication learning.
Completing this survey can help you:
Identify motivating experiences that may not be immediately obvious during a traditional assessment.
Recognize the communicator's unique interests, sensory preferences, and sources of enjoyment.
Discover opportunities for communication within familiar, meaningful activities and routines.
Identify words and messages that connect with the communicator's experiences, interests, and relationships.
Plan engaging, individualized AAC assessment activities and dynamic communication system trials.
Build communication intervention around authentic interests rather than relying primarily on externally selected rewards.
Support shared enjoyment, connection, and responsive interactions between communicators and their partners.
Incorporate caregiver knowledge and family priorities into a strengths-based, participation-focused approach to AAC.
For Caregivers: Use the survey to reflect on what brings your communicator joy and identify words, messages, activities, and everyday experiences that can create natural opportunities for communication.
For Professionals: Share the survey with families and familiar communication partners to gather valuable insights before or during AAC assessment and intervention. Use responses to guide vocabulary selection, plan motivating assessment activities, and develop communication-learning opportunities centered on the interests and experiences of the communicator and those closest to them.
Product Features
3-page fillable PDF featuring typed-response fields for documenting interests, preferences, experiences, and caregiver perspectives.
Complete electronically in a compatible PDF viewer, save, and print.
Print the survey and complete it by hand, if preferred.
Includes prompts organized around happiness and curiosity; sensory experiences, people, and places; and caregiver joy and connection.
Features spacious response boxes for recording individualized observations and examples.
Includes a dedicated notes section for additional information.
Designed for use by families, caregivers, speech-language pathologists, educators, and other communication partners.
Use responses to inform AAC assessment, vocabulary planning, intervention, and collaborative conversations with families.
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 survey is a qualitative information-gathering and planning resource, not a standardized assessment or diagnostic instrument. It is intended to complement, rather than replace, individualized AAC assessment and clinical decision-making.
Preview images show sample pages. The complete three-page fillable PDF is included with your purchase.