A cb reader wrote me a few days ago about his 11 year old son, who has been diagnosed with NonVerbal Learning Difficulties (NVLD or NLD) - the right side of his brain functions poorly. He saw the coffee bean test and was wondering where can he get more to try and help his son to develop his right brain? If you know of any such games please do suggest!

I suggested him to play creative games with his son and I though I would share with you these games because they are useful not only for the small boy, but for creative professionals too.

The simplest game is the word chain. I say a word like "apple" (how did that came to my mind, I wonder). You have to check what letter my word ends with. In this case "e". So, your word would be "elephant" and so on. This is very basic, but you can complicate thing based on this game and make them more challenging, like the next game.

The feature association game is quite fun and useful to develop your creative thinking. For example I say an object: a red rose. You will have to find an object that has any feature like the rose, either has a thorn like a bee, red like blood or used as a cheezy first date gift like chocolate. If you say "chocolate" my turn again to say sweet as a memory, etc.

An even more difficult game that can reaveal a lot about the personality of your friend (especially after a few margaritas) is something I call "Find the link". This game requires preparation. Collect a big box of stuff. You draw two random objects and I have to find a link between the two objects. Lets say the two object are lightbulb and a red billiard ball. The common thread is that a lightbulb looks like a pear and the ball looks like an apple. Both are fruits. I get 1 point. If I manage to come up with 2 links on the same two objects than I get 3 points and if I get 3 links 6 points. Anybody can pitch in after the first link found for 1 extra point even if it's not his round. You play this against each other for 10 rounds with a drink in between and the looser has to pay for all the rounds. Of course I only recommend virgin margaritas.

The game below isn't really testing your creativity, but does test how well can you use your brain to retrieve facts burried in your memory.

If "24 H in a D" is "24 Hours in a Day" what is:
26 L of the A
7 D of the W
7 W of the W
12 S of the Z
66 B of the B
52 C in a P (WJs)
13 S in the USF
18 H on a G C
39 B of the O T
5 T on a F
90 D in a R A
3 B M (S H T R)
32 is the T in D F at which W F
15 P in a R T
3 W on a T
100 C in a R
11 P in a F (S) T
12 M in a Y
13=UFS
8 T on a O
29 D in F in a L Y
27 B in the N T
365 D in a Y
13 L in a B D
52 W in a Y
9 L of a C
60 M in a H
23 P of C in the H B
64 S on a C B
9 P in S A
6 B to an O in C
1000 Y in a M
15 M on a D M C

Time allowed: 20 minutes (don't waste more than that on such a game). Scoring: 1 to 5 is average, 6 - 11 is somewhat Intelligent, 12 to 18 is intelligent, 19+ is genius.