Areas of Training

1. Cognition

The ability to understand information received through any or all of our senses.

Characteristics of High Cognition Learners

• Excellent comprehension of visual details.
• Good foundation in conceptualization.
• Able to see spatial relationships, good in perspective.
• Good grasp of arithmetic facts.
• Able to understand verbal meanings and associations.
• Able to understand complicated verbal information.

Characteristics of Low Cognition Learners

• Difficulty with classification; will be inhibited in science.
• Difficulty manipulating spatial relationships.
• Difficulty with perspective; will be inhibited in geometry.
• Difficulty with “discovery” method; cannot see relationships.
• Weak in arithmetic “facts”.
• Difficulty with the “discovery” method; poor at analogies.
• Inability to “track” long or involved sentences and instructions.

2. Memory

The ability of the mind to store and retrieve information both visually and through auditory senses.

Strengths if Memory is well-developed

• Able to remember incidental information.
• Good with visual details.
• Good with auditory details.
• Able to hold information for reasoning.
• Able to remember and draw implications.

Consequences if Memory is not well-developed

• Difficulty with spelling; may lose visual concentration.
• Will not be able to “hold” and process or sequence data.
• Will not be able to “hold” information presented orally.
• Problems “holding” unconnected facts until implication found.
• Difficulty seeing connections in reading material.

3. Evaluation

The process of using all the information provided to make judgement and decision.

Strengths if Evaluation is well-developed

• Able to make visual judgements.
• Foundation for good organisation and classification.
• Able to conceptualize symbolic data.
• Good at selecting numerical processes.
• Able to remember and draw implications.

Consequences if Evaluation is not well-developed

• May mistake letters (“b” for “d”), or omit small words in sentences.
• Problems with identifying similarities and differences
• Low reading comprehension.
• Difficulty to grasp “new math” approaches and concepts.
• Susceptible to “math anxiety” due to inability to handle ambiguity.

4. Problem Solving

The ability to produce logical answers to a problem.

Strengths if Problem Solving is well-developed

• Neat and careful with details.
• Good command of arithmetic processes.
• Able to scan data rapidly; excellent for programming.
• Able to utilize good reasoning and logic.
• Able to remember and draw implications.

Consequences if Problem Solving is not well-developed

• May be slow at work requiring coordination of hand and eyes.
• Difficulty with “seeing” arithmetic solutions.
• Will lose place while reading; skipping words or lines.
• Will have difficulty with “thought” problems.

5. Creativity

The ability to process and generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions.

Strengths if Creativity is well-developed

• Good fluency and confidence with ideas.
• Confidence and willingness to explore new ideas.
• Ability to produce ideas and put them together.

Consequences if Creativity is not well-developed

• Will be inhibited in tasks without explicit instructions.
• Difficulty assimilating new math concepts; “timidity” in exploring solutions.
• Will be slow in writing; leading to poor compositions.