NATURAL ABILITIES

Assessing your natural abilities will help you achieve a better work/life balance.

You are born with a range of natural abilities unique to you. It's fair to say that these abilities are essentially 'hardwired'. They mature during infancy and can be measured after the age of 15. The Highlands Ability Battery (Highlands) measures these abilities by asking you to perform a series of work samples.

The function of Highlands is to define each ability and then determine the patterns or 'clusters' into which your abilities fall. When you have this information you are able to reduce stress and achieve a better work/life balance. When you know and understand your innate abilities you can use them more effectively in everything you do. Of course, no single ability should dictate a career choice for you, but by measuring a range of abilities we will help you to identify patterns and combinations that will lead to a number of choices.

Assessing Abilities

The most effective way to measure your ability is to get you to perform work samples that test the speed at which you can perform an assigned task. Each Highlands work sample does this. It is a timed task that has been specially designed to measure one ability only. By requiring you to perform a timed work sample we learn more about your ability to perform that task than by any other means.

Personal Style

Several of the work samples measure the ways in which you approach people and the circumstances around them. The results describe you in terms which indicate the study and work environment which would make you most comfortable, productive and satisfied. Specifically, the work samples measure where you fit on three different scales:

The Generalist/Specialist is not an absolute measure but a continuum which indicates your relative preference for working independently or in a group.

The Extrovert/Introvert scale is also a continuum. It measures how comfortable you feel when relating to the people around you. It also determines how you maintain your energy - around people, alone, or a combination of both.

Your Time Frame Orientation assesses how comfortable you are regarding future plans and goals. It tells us how far into the future you are likely to project your plans. Some people prefer the short term while others look to the distant future.

The Driving Abilities

The Highlands identifies five abilities as drivers. These are more or less assertive in you. Beyond a certain point, they may demand to be recognised and used regularly by you. The scores in these abilities are significant in anticipating academic and occupational performance and satisfaction.

Classification assesses non-logical intuitive problem-solving ability, i.e. the ability to see the relationship between seemingly unrelated objects or information.

Concept Organisation assesses ability in linear, logical problem-solving - the ability to assemble known facts, to see the logical connection between them, and to arrive at a logical conclusion.

Idea Productivity measures the number of ideas that spring to mind over a particular period of time in response to new facts.

Spatial Relation Theory measures the ability to conceptualise and envision relationships, whether between abstractions (ideas, principles, theories) or tangible objects.

Spatial Relations Visualisation measures the ability to 'see' and follow in three dimensions an object that is represented in two dimensions. This ability is related to the relative preference for hands-on work and experience and the satisfaction of achieving tangible results.

The Specialised Abilities

The specialised abilities can be divided into two categories - musical abilities and other specialised abilities. Together and separately, these abilities have an impact on the ways in which you take in and learn new material.

The Musical Abilities

Tonal Memory - the ability to remember tunes, tonal sequences and linguistic content. An excellent measure of your capacity to learn aurally, by listening to the spoken word.

Rhythm Memory - the ease with which you can turn physical movement into a learning process.

Pitch Discrimination - measures sensitivity to small differences in external stimuli; helpful to you in detecting subtle changes in the speech and inflection of others.

The Other Specialised Abilities

Design Memory - the ability to learn through graphics and to place new data into graphic form, eg diagrams, drawings, outlines.

Observation - the ability to focus on and remember visual details and to detect changes as they occur.

Verbal Memory - the ease with which you learn new words and remember the content of information presented visually, as in printed text.

Number Memory - the ability to learn, remember and use non-associated material such as raw data and numbers.

Visual Speed and Accuracy - the ease and speed with which you process and interpret new written data; useful in occupations that need instant recall of statistics.

Vocabulary

This is a personal tool developed by you over time, rather than a natural ability. The range of your vocabulary will affect how effectively you can use some of your innate abilities. Vocabulary can be increased by study and concentration and is of great benefit in career development.