The foundation for all programs by the Highlands Company and its Affiliates is the
Highlands Ability Battery™, gold standard among human ability assessment tools. The Battery is a unique assessment test consisting of a series of tasks or worksamples measuring individual abilities and talents. Online since June 1, 2004 at www.abilitybattery.com, the Battery is also offered on an interactive CD and by means of paper and pencil. The Battery is a unique experience in assessment testing.

Every human being is born with a range of abilities unique to him or her. These abilities develop and mature until the age of fifteen or so, when they can be measured. The Highlands Ability Battery™ is a unique tool in ability testing because it measures abilities by asking the individual to perform objective tasks or worksamples. It is neither a self-report instrument nor a group assessment tool.


In 2003, 21 graduate students in Counseling and Career Development at Colorado State University were required to complete the Highlands Ability Battery™ along with MBTI, the Strong Interest Inventory, and True Colors. Here's how they responded to a survey conducted by their instructor:

Question: List the four tests in the order of their effectiveness in measuring your abilities or talents.
Answer: The Highlands Ability Battery™, 81%; Strong, 9.5%; True Colors, 9.5%; MBTI, 0%.

Question: List the four tests in the order of their effectiveness in guiding you in future career decisions.
Answer: The Highlands Ability Battery™, 48%; Strong, 28.5%; True Colors, 19%; MBTI, 4.5%.

The Highlands Ability Battery™ requires the individual to perform nineteen different tasks or worksamples, each measuring a different ability. The worksamples are timed. This enables us to measure the relative ease with which the individual performs each task.

Three categories. The Highlands Ability Battery™ divides abilities into three major ability categories - Personal Style; Driving Abilities; and Specialized Abilities.

The worksamples measuring Personal Style tell us how individuals approach the people and the environment around them.

Some people are uncomfortable if they are made to move with the crowd. They offer unique solutions to problems and like making their own contributions. Other people like to work in groups or teams. These people usually enjoy moving from assignment to assignment.

Driving Abilities. The Driving Abilities influence academic and occupational preferences, and are important in career guidance and career planning. One worksample measures the ability to solve problems in a non-logical manner, i.e., the ability to take seemingly unrelated facts and bring them together into a cohesive conclusion.

Another worksample measures the ability to solve a problem logically by putting a series of related words or ideas in their linear order. This is an important element in any career aptitude test. This ability is common to writers and journalists.

A third worksample measures the rate at which an individual creates new ideas in response to a new challenge - the quantity of ideas produced over a given period, not their quality.

Two other worksamples measure the ability to visualize and manipulate in three dimensions objects presented in two dimensions. The results indicate whether the individual will be more comfortable working with abstractions and ideas or with tangible objects.

Specialized Abilities. The specialized abilities enhance and complement the other abilities. The worksamples measuring these abilities function as career interest tests and help in career guidance and in determining the choice of careers and hobbies. They are divided into visual abilities, musical abilities and abilities supporting five key learning channels.

Visual abilities. We measure the ability to remember and use graphic information, and to observe small changes and details. We also measure visual dexterity - the ability to read and interpret symbols. This ability is useful in any field involving numbers and large quantities of data.

Musical Abilities. We measure tonal memory, rhythm memory and pitch discrimination. These indicate the ability to remember and reproduce musical sounds. They are significant in a wide variety of fields ranging from music to art, language, design, communications, science, and technology.

Learning Channels. The five learning channels are the means by which you take in information. These have application in both academic and every-day learning. They are important in assessing career aptitudes and in career development and career building. We measure your relative strength in the learning channels: reading; listening; hands-on applications and physical movement; use of graphics; and retention of non-associated facts such as numbers and raw data. These measures can assist students to learn more effectively. They can also help adults determine the best ways to ask for and exchange information with their colleagues.

Time Frame and Vocabulary are also tested on the Highlands Ability Battery™. Time Frame measures whether the individual tends to think and plan in the short term or in the long term. The worksample in Vocabulary tests the level of the individual's general vocabulary when measured against the vocabulary of the average college student, with adjustments for age. The development of a strong vocabulary can be a vital factor in career building.

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