The Highlands Ability Battery

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The Highlands Ability Battery (HAB) is an excellent tool for aptitude testing, helping you discover your strengths and put them to work! As a coach, I find this cognitive abilities assessment to be one of my favorite resources for guiding life, education, and career choices through personalized coaching.

Your consultant guides you through the entire process, offering a personalized coaching experience that focuses specifically on your results. This tailored approach is designed to help you act upon what you discover during your cognitive abilities assessment and aptitude testing.

Participants receive their own assessments through aptitude testing and personalized reports. The consultant-led debrief serves as a shared experience, where teams discuss how insights from the cognitive abilities assessment impact their roles, productivity, and collaboration, along with opportunities for personalized coaching.

What we know from the scientific study of human engineering is that we are all born with innate abilities. Our findings from decades of practical application reveal that understanding the interplay between these abilities—through methods like aptitude testing—can provide valuable insights that enhance our journey of self-discovery.

For over three decades, the Highlands Company has conducted cognitive abilities assessments for tens of thousands of students and adults, all in pursuit of our mission to help individuals discover their natural gifts and talents, guiding them to work where they can best utilize these strengths. It is well-known that when individuals focus on their natural abilities while constructing a strategic plan for life and career, they experience profound and lasting benefits, including reduced stress, greater overall balance, decreased burnout, and increased satisfaction.

Through our extensive experience in aptitude testing and research into what makes people successful, we have recognized the significance of connecting abilities and understanding what aptitudes are—and what they are not—to prevent misconceptions. By incorporating personalized coaching into our approach, we empower individuals with powerful insights, enabling them to harness their unique talents effectively and chart a path toward personal and professional fulfillment.

Aptitudes and skills are distinct concepts that describe different aspects of an individual’s performance. Aptitudes are innate abilities that individuals possess, often from birth or develop early on, while skills are acquired through external influences and can be honed through deliberate practice, learning, and experience. Aptitudes tend to endure over time, while skills will decline with disuse.

Many people assume their “performance” represents their aptitudes; it is what the outside world sees and evaluates. In reality, “performance” is a combination of abilities and skills. While the outside world understandably focuses on (and pays for) “performance,” individuals can lose sight of what needs expression, the contributions for which they want to be valued, and how their natural abilities contribute to their satisfaction, contentment, and happiness over the long term.

The results of the HAB provide insight into how a person's cognitive abilities work naturally, highlighting what tasks take less time, effort, or energy compared to those that require more. This distinction between an aptitude and an acquired skill is crucial. However, it does not reflect the effort or choices a person has made, will make, or should make. Using aptitude testing and personalized coaching can be invaluable for career exploration and enhancing job performance and satisfaction.