Reinforcement & Motivational Assessment Inventories
Effective reinforcement starts with knowing what the student actually wants, not what we assume they should want.
Learning depends on motivation, so identifying what genuinely motivates a student is a foundational step in both assessing behavior and building an effective support plan. The tools below help a team explore student motivation from multiple angles: direct interviews with the student, structured input from caregivers and staff who know the student well, and forced-choice formats that surface preferences a student might not think to mention on their own.
Different tools fit different students and situations. Use the guide below to pick the right starting point:
Forced-Choice Reinforcement Menu
A paired-choice survey completed directly by the student. Across 40 items, the student picks their preferred option from two choices at a time (for example, teacher praise versus being first to finish). Responses are scored into five categories: Adult Approval, Competitive/Mastery, Peer Approval, Independent Rewards, and Consumable Rewards, revealing which type of reinforcement tends to motivate the student most. Works well for students who read and complete written surveys independently.
Reinforcement Assessment for Individuals with Severe Disabilities (RAISD)
A structured interview (Fisher et al., 1996) conducted with a caregiver, teacher, or parent rather than the student directly. It walks the informant through sensory and preference categories (visual, auditory, food, movement, touch, social attention, toys) with follow-up probe questions to get specific, then narrows the list to a ranked set of 16 preferred stimuli using a card-sort method. Best suited for students with significant support needs or limited verbal communication.
Reinforcement Inventory (General)
An open-ended interview completed with the student, using questions and sentence-starters ("If you could do anything this afternoon..." "When I'm alone I like to...") to surface genuine interests in the student's own words. A strong general-purpose starting point across a wide age range.
Reinforcement Inventory (Middle & High School)
A short, category-level checklist built for quick use with older students: social incentives, classroom activities, ability to avoid work, food items, and privileges. Where the General Inventory goes deep, this version trades detail for speed, useful when time is limited or a fuller survey doesn't fit the setting.
Student Reinforcement Survey
A two-part tool combining both approaches above. Part I uses open-ended sentence completions to explore relationships and preferences at school. Part II is a categorized checklist (Food, Tangible, Academic, Activity, Social, and Recreation/Leisure reinforcers) the student checks off directly. A comprehensive option when a team wants both narrative context and a fast reference list.
In Behavior Advantage: Enter the reinforcements and motivations identified through any of these tools into the Student Motivations section of the FBA Tab, or the Student Motivations section of a Simple BIP.