As kids and adults, at home, school, or in the workplace, we all rely on certain skills to meet expectations and manage our behavior. These thinking skills help us do things like tolerate frustration, be flexible, and problem-solve. Research has shown that there are five main areas of these thinking skills: Attention & Working Memory, Emotion & Self-Regulation, Language & Communication, Social Thinking, and Cognitive Flexibility. When we examine our skills in these areas, we often recognize that some are stronger than others. Our strengths help us navigate situations successfully, and the skills we sometimes struggle with explain why there are times we don't navigate situations as well.
Identifying strengths and areas of difficulty might help explain why you or someone you know excels in certain areas and struggles in others. The good news is that skills can be built! Identifying skills where we struggle is the first step towards working on developing them. Our Collaborative Problem Solving approach is one way to help build thinking skills.
Take the anonymous, 22-question assessment below to better understand your own or someone else's thinking skills. You will be asked to reflect on how easy or hard a particular skill is for you or someone you know. Once you finish, you'll get your results and more information about each thinking skill.
