But some go further. I became one of them when I took an aptitude test over the summer at the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation in DC. It began in 1922 to study human abilities and give people knowledge of their aptitudes and how they corresponded with certain careers. By now their testing is quite refined – it took me two three-hour appointments for to complete it all – and involves both computer-guided and person-to-person testing for such things as memory recall (numbers, words, patterns), how quickly you can discern patterns and your immediate reactions to certain words or pictures. My third appointment was to explain all my results to me. Here’s what I learned:
Aptitudes are often confused with intelligence, abilities and skills. But the Foundation defines them as “natural talents, special abilities for doing, or learning to do, certain kinds of things easily and quickly.” They also specify that aptitudes are hereditary and “highly stable over long-term periods,” unlike personality traits, which may change over time. Most importantly, they are the best indicators of how successful and fulfilling a person’s job will be, since every job requires and every person has a specific set of aptitudes. If the person and the job don’t match up, both are in trouble: Unused aptitudes make a person feel bored and unfulfilled; lacking aptitudes make the work seem difficult and unpleasant.
So what are these aptitudes? The Foundation tests 24 individual ones in ten different categories, and a person can score low, high or average on each of them. They include numerical and auditory abilities, color discrimination, motor skills, spatial visualization (3-D imagining), memory (for words, designs, numbers and changes) and artistic judgment (preference for simple but non-uniform designs).
So how does this help me? you may be wondering. Knowing your scores for certain aptitudes can help you choose a career that would best suit you. The Foundation has compiled data on which aptitudes are best for a multitude of jobs. High 3-D imagining, for instance, is imperative for architects and engineers. But high scores aren’t always the best – high ideaphoria, or flow of ideas, for instance, can be distracting. I should know: I have it, and a notebook, too, so I don’t forget all my good ideas. Having a lot of high aptitudes isn’t always best either – as they put it, aptitudes aren’t tools that you can pick up and put down at will: They are always in you hands and must be used. If not, your sense of fulfillment suffers.
There’s one more thing: At least one aptitude is directly linked to a learning disorder. Graphoria, or eye speed, indicates how quickly a person can do paperwork without sacrificing accuracy. People with low graphoria do paperwork at a painstakingly slow speed and often make simple clerical errors anyway. Since paperwork is an important part of schoolwork, low-grahporia students generally find school difficult. Because this disability is not well-known among educators, many students never know they have it. That said, tips for such students can be found online from the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation.
Of course, if you want the full scoop you’ll have to get tested yourself – or go to the Foundation’s website and order their official book, Your Natural Gifts.
