Abilities are natural talents that predict how quickly and easily we can do certain kinds of things.
Musical ability, spatial visualization, and memory for numbers are examples of abilities.
Abilities are innate. They are how we are hard wired. And, abilities are not influenced by education
or experience. They don't improve with practice or go away with neglect.
Unlike skills and knowledge which erode if not maintained, abilities will not change much
over time.
Most of us find our greatest success and satisfaction at those things we're good at. We perform
best at those things that come naturally to us. We all have natural gifts and abilities.
But not all of us are conscious of just what our greatest abilities are or how they can be
applied to create the life we dream of living.
Leadership Strategies offers the Highlands Ability Battery - a program that identifies natural abilities.
The Highlands Ability Battery traces its history back to the pioneering studies begun in 1922 by
Johnson O'Connor, a research scientist who devoted his work life to the study of innate human
abilities. O'Connor perceived that every individual is born with a pattern of abilities unique to him
or her, that those abilities are essentially hard-wired and that they can be measured successfully
when the individual is sufficiently mature to manifest or express them - usually, after the age of
fourteen.
O'Connor's program was initially begun for the General Electric Company. There he developed
a series of laboratory tests requiring the client to perform a number of hands-on tasks. The tasks
were performed before a test administrator. They were designed to test and measure the client's
basic aptitudes - ability to work with figures and symbols; color perception; inductive reasoning;
analytical reasoning; idea flow; numerical aptitude; structural visualization; musical aptitude;
manual dexterity; and memory. The individual tasks were timed. Timing separated those clients
who were able to perform a given task easily from those who required more time and application.
The program was so successful that the families and friends of the employees of General Electric
asked to be tested and O'Connor decided to expand the program beyond its industrial setting.
In the early years, the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation was associated with the Stevens
Institute of Technology and the Illinois Institute of Technology.
During the 1980's, the test was administered to clients in the Washington, DC area by a number
of practitioners trained in its use. In the early 1990's, the test and its enthusiastic reception by
clients came to the attention of two men in Atlanta, one with a background in psychology and
the other, an entrepreneur who understood the potential for
administration and use of the test in a variety of contexts.
They saw the test could be used effectively by high school and college students who need
guidance in their choice of studies and careers; by adults who seek insights towards a career
change, to improve performance or achieve greater satisfaction in their jobs, or, to an unbiased
assessment of their true abilities; or by groups of workers in a common corporate or institutional
setting who can be helped to restructure their work habits and their relationships to achieve greater
group performance and to minimize stress.
In 1992, these men acquired the rights to use the test developed by the O'Connor researchers.
In 1994, a further study of the reliability and validity of each of the work samples comprising the
Battery was conducted. The participants were college graduates and college students. The results
showed individual test reliabilities ranging from .83 to .95. Subsequently, the Battery has
undergone a series of validity studies which continue to show strong evidence of convergent
validity.
Since the introduction of the Highlands CD battery in 1999, more than 4200 individuals have
completed the Battery. Their results were recently tabulated in a study of norms conducted by
the Chauncey Group, an affiliate of the Educational Testing Service of Princeton, New Jersey.
Leadership Strategies administers the Highlands Ability Battery to adults and students
15 years and older. The assessment process for the client consists of:
· 4 hour test
· 30 page personalized report
· 2 hour feedback conference
· high and low scores analyzed and linked to work-related skills
· career fields and roles within those fields are suggested
· audio tape of conference
Leadership Strategies is pleased to offer the Highlands Ability Battery in CD form for $525.
More information is available by e-mailing us at
potential@Lsresults.com.
