SOI-IPP GETS TO THE ROOT OF LEARNING DIFFICULTIES BY ADDRESSING THE ISSUES THAT OFTEN CAUSE POOR ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE.
Employers, employment retraining programs, and school career counselors could all benefit from understanding the crucial link between developing evaluation skills and an individual’s success in their work world.
Evaluation skills are key to the following:
- to being an effective executive and leader
- to becoming successfully employed
- to being a valuable employee
What is evaluation? SOI defines evaluation as
- judgment
- decision making
- critical thinking
- working in gray areas where no single right answer prevails – only better choices
In the work
force, individuals with low evaluation skills often don’t retain their employment. Good judgment includes the ability to prioritize – to recognize what is essential to a job well done. It is also about recognizing basic rules and boundaries and how to exist in harmony with these.
Some lessons in judgment come with experience. For example: “If I’m continually late and not respectful of others’ time, I will not be valued. Eventually I may lose my job.”
Most judgment develops only if other foundational abilities are in place. For example, if someone has low comprehension, they will find it difficult to understand the importance of certain things. How can you prioritize without knowing what’s important?
Memory is part of the foundational base. If you can’t remember content and key concepts, you lack tools for decision-making. Without problem-solving ability, an individual may not know how to ask the right questions needed for critical thinking and decision making.
Within the framework of these broad categories, there are specific areas where some comprehension may exist and others where understanding is completely lacking.
SOI-IPP can help because it identifies specific deficits and systematically develops the missing abilities. School teaches comprehension, memory, and problem solving, so why do we need SOI?
One of the issues with our current schooling is that many individuals are unprepared or unable to benefit from teaching. SOI-IPP can reach the individual who is struggling with learning and create the ability to learn. We are not just talking about individuals with learning disabilities. SOI can remediate most learning difficulties since as Dr. Meeker has so concisely stated, “Most learning problems are not severe. They are merely undiagnosed and untreated.”
SOI can create successful learners from poor learners again and again through diagnosis and treatment. We have already talked about how SOI identifies learning abilities. There are SOI brain exercises to develop cognitive abilities. Frequently, the problem is more complex than what we’ve described. Sometimes the root of the issue begins with an inability to process information.
When a teacher is explaining a concept, the learner must be able to ‘hear’ what is being said. Sometimes the messages going to the brain are not strong enough to receive that information clearly. This is when the ‘brain can’t hear’. When an individual is reading a passage, the visual system must recognize the words, the meanings must register, and the brain must process what has been read. If any of the steps in this process are weak, full comprehension will not follow. Where auditory or visual processing is impaired, the learner is not learning at their potential. SOI-IPP can usually fix that.
Once the processing is in place, systematic cognitive development will be possible. Then non-learners become successful learners.
Everyone who has the vision of individuals fulfilling their career potential would benefit from understanding and implementing the solutions available. SOI-IPP truly can transform an individual’s life by building a foundation of good judgement.
written by: Connie Grist, SOI Associate
