The SOI Test of Learning Abilities (Form CR) is especially appropriate as an intellectual assessment to assist in the selection of students for gifted and talented programs. It is appropriate because it is multi-faceted – testing 26 different intellectual abilities. The robustness of the test allows those students with gifts in areas not usually included in other intellectual assessments – figural abilities, symbolic abilities, evaluation abilities, and creativity – to be considered along with the traditional semantic abilities. This opens the gifted program beyond the traditional academically gifted. The SOI test has the added advantage that it can be followed by SOI training exercises to help “round out” the profiles of gifted students. Of course, every student in a gifted program is not gifted in all intellectual abilities, and sometimes the shortcomings can be very inhibiting in higher levels of academics and in the practical world beyond.
