The figure shown is made up of a triangle and a square the perimeter is 56 inches. what is the area of the figure?

That 56-inch perimeter includes the two hypotenuses shown, for a total of 20 inches.   subtracting 20 inches from that 56 inches results in 36 inches.   this 36 inches is the sum of the 3 sides of the square.   what is the length of one of these sides?   call this length "a."

then the area of the square is a^2.   find a^2.
the vertical dashed line has length a (see above).   the horiz. dashed line has length 8.   with the right hand part of the figure being a triangle of base a and height 8, the area is   a = (1/2)(8a).

add together the area of the square and the area of this large triangle to obtain the total area of the figure.

184 in sq because each side length of the square is 12in so 12 x 12 = 144 plus the area of the triangle which is 40 = 184