Figuring Out Figural Learners

One of the most enlightening aspects of my training with SOI was learning about figural learners. When my youngest son, Christian, was 6 years old, I discovered through SOI testing that he had sensory integration issues and was a figural learner. What is a figural learner? A learner who has high figural-spatial skills, but is lower in semantic and symbolic learning and learns best by using concrete, hands-on, three dimensional information. They see pictures in their mind and excel when they are able to learn by seeing, touching, and doing. Most young children start out as figural learners. My son…

The Effectiveness of IPP Remediation

The effectiveness of IPP remediation is linked to the order in which abilities are remediated and to the completeness of the program. Over a two and a half year period, I worked closely with a school that described itself as offering an alternative school experience for students who were both gifted and had learning issues. As you are aware, there is a profile for the gifted/learning disabled student which Mary Meeker described as ‘mountains and valleys.' In the school where I was assisting, many of the students did not have a lot of gifted cognitive abilities. However, all the students…

Painting Destiny: A Certified Learning Story

CERTIFIED LEARNING TEACHES THE INTELLECTUAL ABILITIES YOUR KINDERGARTEN, FIRST, AND SECOND GRADE STUDENTS NEED FOR ACADEMIC SUCCESS. When potential and destiny intersect, it creates an interesting conversation. The former speaks of what might be; the latter of what was meant to be. One looks at raw materials while the other at the finished product. Raw materials - or palettes, in the world of the SOI practitioners - have many expressions: CFU, CMU, NFU, SI, FS, etc. We are given the high honor and great responsibility of looking at a canvas with varying colors and intensities. Some are brilliant and intense,…

Intellectual Abilities Training

In developing SOI training modules for intellectual abilities training, we follow two guiding principles. First, we focus as much as possible on only one intellectual ability at a time – there are over 90 abilities in the Structure of Intellect, so we recommend finding which are most in need of development, and then in turn we concentrate on training each of the single abilities. We use the SOI Learning Abilities test to determine which abilities are most in need of development. We have over two hundred printed and computer-based modules that train one (or at the most two) abilities at…

Training Executive Functioning

You can’t beat CMS and MSS training for success in school! The core of how ADHD affects the pre-frontal cortex involves executive functioning; it creates deficits in both sequencing and working memory. Working memory involves keeping information in order, keeping information organized, planning, and pulling information out of the thinking brain in the right order. Working memory is essential to success in higher education. SOI trains MSS visual and auditory to strengthen working memory. Since we know that executive functioning develops slowly - starting at 9 months old and continuing into the 40’s - we can train sequencing and memory for…

Alex’s Story

Every once in a while I receive mail at SOI that is not a bill, an order, or junk mail. On this day it was a letter from clinician Betsy Schooley of California, updating me on Alex, who was a student of hers for the past 2 years. Last year, Betsy explained the resistance Alex had to writing because it was so difficult for him. Not just getting the words on the paper, but the physical effort of printing the letters. Part of Alex's SOI program was a DFU module. After speaking with Betsy, and as an incentive for Alex…

Evaluation Training I

Throughout our lives, we are constantly required to make choices and decisions. Some need to be made quickly; some can take more time. And we want to be able to make the right choice. Evaluation training is important because evaluation is the ability to reach decisions, to make decisions, or to make judgments concerning a situation. It is the type of intelligence that allows a person to survey the correctness, suitability, adequacy, and desirability of alternative responses and to then choose the correct action. Having these judgement skills in place is an important foundation for both life and learning. Let's…

Certified Learning Welcomed on the High Plains of Texas

Lubbock, Texas sits high on a windy plain, atop what is known as the “Caprock of Texas.” This area is one of the most recently settled areas of the entire United States. Why? One answer is weather. For years, tornadoes, hailstorms, lightning strikes, windstorms, blizzards, unpredictable rains and lack of surface water discouraged all but the very hearty from settling these wide open spaces. There were no trees, little topography and therefore little protection from the elements. This vast grassland was reportedly named the “Llano Estacado” or “Staked Plains” by the Spanish explorer Francisco de Coronado who, when striking out…

The SOI Program Changed My Life

I gave my friend Sean a call the other day to see how he was getting along. “Great,” he said. “In fact, I’m doing really well. You knew that I’m working on my Master’s degree, didn’t you?” Yes, I knew Sean was doing well. I always make it a habit to inquire about his well-being. Since I met him in 2010, shortly after his return from two tours of military service in Afghanistan with the U.S. Marine Corp, he has become someone I often think about. When I asked about his field of study, he shared, “My area of interest…

Convergent Production Training I

Convergent production. What does it mean? How does it affect the way we learn? Convergent production is better known as "school learning." It is the production of a correct answer, produced as taught. In other words, a student is given a problem to solve and must converge upon the correct answer. With this definition, it is easy to see why convergent production is critical to the learning process. Like memory and other learning abilities, convergent production can be trained and improved. The exercise provided below is a great place to start! Exercise - Convergent Production of Figural Relations Objective: To…

Figuring Out Figural Learners

The Effectiveness of IPP Remediation

Painting Destiny: A Certified Learning Story

Intellectual Abilities Training

Training Executive Functioning

Alex’s Story

Evaluation Training I

Certified Learning Welcomed on the High Plains of Texas

The SOI Program Changed My Life

Convergent Production Training I

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