What are cognitive skills?

Cognitive skills are the essential abilities your brain relies on to think, read, learn, remember, reason, and focus. Together, they take in new information and store it in the knowledge base you use every day at school, at work, and in daily life.

Each cognitive skill plays a vital role in how you process information. If even one of these skills is weak, your ability to understand, retain, or apply new information can be affected. In fact, many learning challenges stem from one or more underdeveloped cognitive skills.

Long-Term Memory

What it does: Allows you to recall information learned in the past.
When it’s weak: Forgetting names, struggling on tests, or forgetting things you once knew.

Working Memory

What it does: Helps you hold onto information while actively using it.
When it’s weak: Re-reading instructions during a task, difficulty following multi-step directions, or forgetting what was just said in a conversation.

Logic & Reasoning

What it does: Supports problem-solving, idea formation, and reasoning.
When it’s weak: Often asking “What’s next?” or saying “I don’t understand,” difficulty with math, or feeling stuck and overwhelmed.

Auditory Processing

What it does: Helps you analyze and work with sounds.
When it’s weak: Difficulty learning to read, poor reading fluency, or weak reading comprehension.

Visual Processing

What it does: Enables you to think in images and visualize information.
When it’s weak: Trouble understanding or remembering what you read, difficulty following directions, reading maps, or solving word-based math problems.

Processing Speed

What it does: Allows you to complete tasks quickly and accurately.
When it’s weak: Taking longer than others to finish tasks, schoolwork, or projects, and finding most tasks more challenging.

Attention

What it does:

• Sustained attention: Staying focused for an extended time
  
  

• Selective attention: Staying focused despite distractions
  
  

• Divided attention: Managing two tasks while remembering information
  
  

When it’s weak: Unfinished tasks, frequent distractions, jumping between tasks, difficulty multitasking, and making frequent mistakes.