Goa Chamber of Commerce & Industry (GCCI)

Simply, if a student is compensating for weak cognitive skills by relying on his or her strong cognitive skills, a “Learning Styles Exercise” will reveal this underlying pattern and allow for corrective action. Studies have revealed that more than 80% of learning struggles come from weak underlying cognitive mental skills. That is why cognitive-based testing, like a “Learning Styles Exercise”, is the most proven and effective way to start someone on the path to improved learning.

With a learning style exercise, the main focus is on the main processing areas in the brain. A scoring system is used by quality testing and learning centers to help better identify potentially weak or strong skills. Higher scores in a certain area typically will mean they are a root cause for a learning issue. The processes focused on in this exercise include attention, processing speed, auditory processing, visual processing, and logic and reasoning.

Here are your instructions so you can conduct a small sample “Learning Styles Exercise”: “Compared to kids the same age and gender, this behavior occurs _________ in my son or daughter.

“Rank each statement on a scale of “0” to “4” as follows:

(0) less often OR doesn’t apply at this age;
(1) at about the same frequency;
(2) slightly more;
(3) considerably more; or
(4) significantly more.

You would rank where your child stands on topics such as attention, processing speed, auditory processing, memory, visual processing, and logic. Each of those main categories would have a variety of subcategories that you would work from. After you are done you would add up each category. A score of 6 or below would suggest a normal range for that particular skill set, scoring 7 to 9 points out potential weaknesses, 10 to 11 shows a likely weakness, and 12 or above suggests a significant weakness. Once you have conducted your assessments it is important to go to a qualified learning center for a more thorough assessment of your child’s particular situation.

By Paul Counts