The Power of Change: The Feuerstein Method

When I first wrote this article, my mission was to not only convince people of the power of Reuven Feuersteins work but also show how possible it is to change the "human being" no matter their condition (age, genetic make up, etc). It is the fight however with the common belief system that "CHANGE" is only possible to a certain amount or in levels of the developmental stages.

It is the work of Reuven Feuerstein who has changed more children, more parents, and more teachers lives for the better due to his systematic theories and programs which has lasted for more than 60 years. While others have "taken" or adapted his work on cognitive modifiability it is his work on the theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability, Mediated Learning Experience, the Learning Propensity Assessment Device, the Instrumental Enrichment Programs, the Deficient Cognitive Functions, the Cognitive Map, and the Modifying Environment have shown every human being is open and adaptable for CHANGE. It is each of these sub parts of Feuersteins main theory of SCM which must be study, learned, and fully understood in order to be able to put forth the "POWER OF CHANGE".

KJB

The study of the human being is a fascinating subject. For thousands of years, humans have shown their capacity for change, adaptability, and to become modifiable. Over the course of hundreds of years, philosophers, scientists, and psychologists have been debating how this is possible. Is intelligence really fixed? Is it a matter of nature, a predisposed factor brought on by genetics? Is it a matter of nurture, how one interacts with the environment, the social world? Or could it be both?

Similar to Vygotsky’s Theory of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), Feuerstein’s theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability makes the point that there is more to just human development than genetics or environment. Feuerstein and his colleagues have taken this a few steps further. The theory of SCM originated on two concepts – structure and modifiability. Feuerstein considers these two concepts to be the primary reason for behavioral manifestations of the mental and cognitive structures.

The basis for the theory of SCM is derived from three different sub parts (Feuerstein, Feuerstein, Falik & Rand, 2006):

1. The Human being is the outcome of a triple ontogeny – biological, social- cultural and the interactions of the mediated learning experience (MLE).
   
2. Model behavior represents states rather than traits of the a organism, and leads to a new and more adaptive definition of intelligence .
   
3. Brain plasticity results in the generation of new structures, created through internal and external behaviors.

Professor Feuerstein and his colleagues continually argue that IQ tests are not measuring the individual’s potential to learn. Rather, IQ tests measure the individual’s current abilities compared to the current population they are in (this would mean that every individual learns in the same way). This in turn goes back to the theory that all individuals are different and that they all have different abilities in the learning process. For example, if one individual likes math and the other likes art, the two may perceive, internalize, externalize differently – in turn, giving different interpretations to what is on an IQ test.

They also argue that the environment and the culture of every individual is different, and that every environment and every culture is different everywhere. We know from many different theories that the environment has a large impact on the individual’s learning process. If the environment were the same everywhere and the internalization process were the same, I would then fully agree with an IQ test. But is this a false statement?

It is not necessarily to dispute the field of psychometric testing. It is that society believes that this type of testing is the only way in which we can help an individual learn. But this is not true. The blame is never put on how we are teaching or why the individual is not learning what they are supposed to learn. In our society, we need to ask the questions, “How?” and “Why?”.
Just because an individual has the genetic makeup of Down syndrome, Autistic Spectrum Disorder, or Learning Disorders, is he/she unable to learn? Our society replies, “To a limited amount, or no, and that we should only…”

This is what Feuerstein defines as “passive acceptance." The individual manifesting cognitive, emotional, and behavioral interventions which are based on the belief (overtly or covertly) that regardless of the nature of the intervention the low functioning individual is and will remain virtually immune to change. This leads in the best case to an acceptance of the individual as he or she is, in many instances reinforcing the existing condition, adapting the environment to minimize stress or disruption and thus minimizing the amount of adaption required of the individual.”

But, with the right type of mediation, we can teach this individual to learn as a “normal” individual or even more than a “normal” individual. If we believe that they are incapable then they will be incapable. If we believe that they are capable they will become capable.
We need to learn not only this but also how to understand the cognitive and the deficient cognitive processes. The locus of the deficiencies resulting from the lack of mediated learning experience is peripheral rather than central, and reflects attitudinal and motivational deficiencies, lack of working habits and learning, rather than structural and elaboration incapacities. Feuerstein’s Learning Propensity Assessment Device (LPAD) has enabled us to establish an inventory of cognitive functions that are undeveloped, poorly developed, arrested, and/or impaired. They are categorized into the input, elaboration, and the output levels. There are 28 different and similar deficiencies of cognitive functioning.

The LPAD is designed of different static/conventional tests. The major difference is that we are assessing the individual before and after mediation (teaching). If the individual shows a difference from before to after, they are called modifiable (i.e., the individual can learn and with the right type of mediation there is hope for him/her).

The Learning Propensity Assessment Devise (LPAD) is a method of dynamic assessment by which a trained examiner identifies the development of an individual’s cognitive functions. The examiner watches the learning and retention of what an individual learns in response to different ways of teaching. The dynamic assessment with the LPAD enables the examiner to understand how the examinee thinks, learns, and the possibilities for the development of the examinee’s learning potential. The most important things to understand about the LPAD are:

1. It is about learning and not the obvious level of functioning.
   
2. The examinee is made comfortable and is encouraged to perform as best as they can.
   
3. The examiner teaches the tasks and sees how the examinee learns.
   

The LPAD differs from traditional educational and psychological evaluations in that the examiner gains information not from scores or single responses, but from observations of repeated responses to the tasks and from teaching the examinee how to solve the problems and respond correctly (meditation).

Another important feature of the LPAD is the inclusion of the various modalities of processing and responding to information – verbal, pictorial, numerical, figural, symbolic, and graphic – and the subject’s responses to each. The LPAD battery consists of a variety of instruments. As the examinee responds, the examiner gathers information, develops ideas about the learner’s needs and functions, uses these insights in choosing LPAD instruments for further assessment and analyzing performance in subsequent instruments. Used in conjunction with standardized tests, the LPAD adds a perspective on the types of interventions that are needed for the individual’s learning abilities and potential for growth.

Built from Feuerstein's Theories of Structural Cognitive Modifiability (SCM) and Mediated Leaning Experience (MLE), the Instrumental Enrichment program is a cognitive intervention/enrichment that can be used both individually and in a classroom framework. When the child is weak in use of any functions, for whatever reason, it is necessary that a teacher or other helping professional mediate the development. If the weak functions are not strengthened, the student is most likely to achieve poorly throughout his or her academic and work life.

FIE is an effort-based cognitive intervention/enrichment program with a rigorously and widely researched conceptual framework. This framework identifies, defines and classifies a set of cognitive functions. By developing the cognitive functions exclusive of content, FIE causes significant and powerful gains in student learning and achievement.
When the child is weak in use of any functions, for whatever reason, it is necessary that a teacher or other helping professional mediate the development. If the weak functions are not strengthened, the student is most likely to achieve poorly throughout his or her academic and work life. More than 2000 studies with a wide range of learner populations from countries around the world attest to FIE's power in increasing students' cognitive performance and academic achievement.

Teachers, trained as cognitive mediators, have provided even the most challenged students with new thinking dispositions that will improve learning habits for a lifetime. For this to occur, a teacher must develop new teaching dispositions, which focus on developing the students' cognitive capabilities and overcoming the limits of thinking and learning caused by such factors as poverty, special needs, or language. To develop these dispositions, FIE provides an intensive and rigorous training program that prepares the teacher or helper to "mediate" development of the cognitive functions using the "instruments", a series of pen and paper tasks, which increase in difficulty, are independent of content in any subject area, and target the development of cognitive functions on a daily basis.These are ways of showing hope to communities of individuals that they are not stuck in one place. There are options to every human. These are wonderful tool are not only for psychologists but also for teachers, parents, and most importantly, the individual. It is not just the idea of changing an individual, it is creating change; the whole philosophy of structural cognitive modifiability.