Learning Styles Inventory:

        The following quiz will help determine if your pre-adolescent child (ages 5-13) is left-, right, or whole-brained.

1.  Is your child extremely wiggly?

2.  Does your child have difficulty with coloring or handwriting?

3.  Was your child a late walker?

4.  Is your child extremely sensitive to criticism?

5.  Does your child have allergies or asthma?

6.  Is your child good with building toys, such as Lincoln Logs, Legos, or Tinker Toys?

7.  Is your child good at puzzles or mazes?

8.  If you read a book to your child two or three times, is he or she capable of filling in missing words with almost perfect recall?

9.  Is it extremely important that your child like his or her teacher in order to do well in class?

10. Is your child easily distracted, or does he daydream a lot?

11. Is your child unable to consistently finish tasks?

12. Does your child tend to act first and think later?

13. Do you have to cut labels out of your child’s clothes?  Does he or she only want to wear clothing that’s especially soft and well-worn?

14. Is your child overwhelmed at sporting events, loud parties, amusement parks?

15. Does your child tend to shy away from hugs?

16. Does your child need constant reminders to do certain things?

17. Is your child extremely competitive and a poor loser?

18. Does your child have a good sense of humor?  Does he have a better-than-average ability to understand or create puns?

19. Is your child a perfectionist to the point that it gets in the way of trying new things?

20. Can your child recall a summer vacation or other event from one or two years ago in vivid detail?

           The following quiz will help determine left- or right-brainedness for teenagers and adults:

1.  Are you better at remembering faces than names?

2.  When you’re presented with a toy or piece of furniture to assemble, are you likely to discard the printed directions and figure out how to build it yourself?

3.  Are you better at thinking or ideas if you’re left alone to concentrate, rather than working with a group?

4.  Do you mostly rely on pictures to remember things, as opposed to names and words?

5.  Do you have especially acute hearing?

6.  Do you cut the labels out of clothes?  Do you favor garments that are especially soft and well-worn, finding most clothing too rough or scratchy?

7.  Do you tend to put yourself down a lot?

8.  When you’re asked to spell a word, do you “see” it in your head rather than sound it out phonetically?

9.  When you’re studying a subject, do you prefer to get the “big” picture as opposed to learning a lot of facts?

10. Are you good with puzzles and mazes?

11. Can you imagine things well in three dimensions?  In other words, can you visualize a cube in your mind, rotates it, and view it from every angle without difficulty?

12. Were you considered a late bloomer?

13. Did you need to like your teacher to do well in his or her class?

14. Are you easily distracted to the point that you find yourself daydreaming a lot?

15. Are you a perfectionist to the point that it gets in the way of trying new things?

16. Are you ultra-competitive, hating to lose more than most people do?

17. Are you good at figuring people out?  Do others tell you that you’re at “reading” people?

18. Is your handwriting below average or poor?

19. Were you a late walker, or did you have other delayed motor skills as a child?

20. When you’re in a new place, do you tend to find your way around easily?

The more yes responses you have, the more to the right you or your child will be on the left-brained continuum.  In general:  0-4 yes answers indicate that you’re very left-brained, 5-8 somewhat left-brained, 9-12 whole-brained, 13-16 somewhat right-brained, and 17-20 very right-brained.  This is not a scientific test, but it will give you a general understanding of your brain dominance. 

If you are working with a pre-schooler or kindergartener who doesn’t yet have full letter recognition, you can use the following exercise to give you an early indication of his brain dominance.  This is a fun activity that can give you a clue as to how right-brained and visual you r little one really is.

On a piece of plain white paper, draw seven circles of approximately the size in a straight line across the page.  Randomly use three or four different colored markers or crayons so that the sequence might be:  green, blue, red, yellow, green, yellow.  Instruct your child to study the circles for at least twenty seconds, until he or she feels confident he can remember them. 

Remove the paper and ask the child to name the colors from left to right, and then right to left.  The results may surprise you!  Most children with ADD will be able to do this by hyperfocusing and using their visual memory.  Notice whether your child closes his eyes or looks upward, an indication that he/she’s getting a picture of those colored circles in his mind.