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Hamby Associates
7744 Broadway
Suite 101
San Antonio, Texas 78209
Phone (210) 826-4218
FAX (210) 822-8384

Hamby Associates Consulting and Counseling

Our logo, the wind rose, is a navigational device used by 15^th century map makers and mariners to determine the direction and velocity of the wind.

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The Highlands Ability Battery – Online and Student Workshop

Unlike any other assessment test – SAT, ACT, your state’s tests under the No Child Life Behind Program –the Highlands Ability Battery is an assessment you take on your computer. What’s more, the Battery doesn’t measure the level of your achievements in specific subjects. Instead, it measures your core intrinsic abilities – the abilities you were born with. It tells you:

      •    How you learn best – by reading or listening, or through graphics or movement
      •    How you solve problems and make decisions
      •    Whether you think in the short or the long term
      •    What class size and environment are right for you
      •    Your perception of space, objects and spatial relations
      •    How fast and accurately you see changes in letters and numbers
      •    How quickly and spontaneously you generate new ideas
      •    Whether you are a diagnostic thinker or an analytical thinker
      •    Whether you like to concentrate on one subject or prefer diversity

This information is more basic and important than how you tested in English or Math. It will help you to decide on the right college, what curriculum to follow, and what profession or career to aim for.

How do we measure all these abilities? By having you perform 19 different worksamples on your computer screen and keyboard. Each worksample asks you to do something – organize a group of related facts; find a common thread among seemingly unrelated objects; create a flow of new ideas; juggle wiggly blocks in your mind; mentally poke holes in a piece of folded paper, unfold the paper, and find the holes; identify objects which are added or removed from a picture of common objects.

Jake really didn’t have a clue about college. He had never done well in school and never seemed interested. Jake took the Ability Battery because his parents made him do it, and he discovered some interesting things about himself. Jake learned that part of the reason he had had difficulty in school was that it was hard for him to pick up information from written material. He did find out, though, that he had the ability to remember what he heard. Learning and reviewing material became easier for him when he began tape-recording classroom discussions and lectures.

Jake also learned that he had strong abilities and interests in visual design. He was delighted. Here was something he could really do. While he was still in high school, he began taking art and design courses. A passing interest in photography became a passion. Jake enrolled in a school of design, and by last reports, he was doing just fine.

Jake’s mother had this say to say: “The Highlands Student Workshop made all the difference in Jake’s confidence. It seemed as though he just came out of his shell and was suddenly willing to try some things he had never done before. It was wonderful to see him stand so tall.

The worksamples are timed, and your results are measured in part by the speed with which you perform each task. The Battery takes three hours to finish. It doesn’t have to be done at one sitting – you can go in and out after you finish a worksample.

When you finish the Battery, you will get a 32-page Report of your core abilities, including a bar chart showing your scores. Each score is expressed as a percentile which relates your score to the scores of all students who have completed the Battery. After you review the Report, you will participate in a four-hour workshop with a small group of your fellow students. This will help you link your abilities to the other factors that will influence your career.

The Student Workshop – 4 Hours

Students who complete the Highlands Ability Battery participate in a 4-hour Student Workshop conducted by Lynn Hamby.

Each student will review his or her Report before the Workshop.

Over the years, we have found that some scores are good indicators of a facility for a particular profession or occupation. Lawyers, for example, generally test high in analytical thinking and low in spatial visualization. As you might expect, engineers test high in spatial visualization and design memory. Dentists also score relatively high in spatial visualization.

What does our experience indicate? One simple fact – it’s better to know what your core abilities are than not to know them at all. If you learn what they are at this stage – as you contemplate college and career – you are less likely to get caught up in a curriculum or a career that’s not for you, that will only cause you stress and unhappiness.

We don’t limit our workshops to a discussion of Abilities. We tie abilities together with seven other factors that enable each student to make a good choice of college, curriculum and career. These other factors are skills, interests, values, goals, family history, personal style and level of schooling.

We don’t test these other factors because they are essentially fluid and indeterminate, but we do ask you to tell us how they have influenced you and how they are likely to affect you in the future. When we know all these things about you, we can talk about the role they will inevitably play in your life. Our Student Workshop is a carefully structured program leading to heightened self-awareness. It includes special exercises to help you learn about yourself and plan your future.

This is a critical stage in your life. So many students go off to college without any guidance or knowledge about the career they should follow. You don’t have to be one of them.