Structural Cognitive Modifiability
What is MLE?
What is LPAD?
What is IE?
Deficient Cognitive Functions
Cognitive Map

The theory of structural cognitive modifiability (SCM) views the human organism as open, adaptive and amenable for change. The aim of this approach is to modify the individual, emphasizing autonomous and self-regulated change. Intelligence is viewed as a propensity of the organism to modify itself when confronted with the need to do so. It involves the capacity of the individual to be modified by learning and the ability to use whatever modification has occurred for future adjustments. Intelligence is defined as a changeable state rather than an immutable trait. Cognition thus plays a central role in human modifiability. Many behavioral and emotional conditions may become modified through cognitive intervention. Mediated Learning Experience is a proximal factor of human modifiability, which can moderate the influence of such distal factors as genetic predisposition, organic impairment, or educational deprivation.

The theoretical apparatus of SCM includes the list of Deficient Cognitive Functions, criteria of Mediated Learning Experience and the Cognitive Map. The principles of SCM are realized in such applied systems as Learning Potential Assessment Device and Instrumental Enrichment.

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Mediated Learning Experience
Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) describes a special quality of interaction between a learner and a person, whom we shall call a "mediator". Feuerstein’s theory of MLE identifies two basic forms of interaction: direct learning and mediated learning. Direct learning includes unmediated exposure of the organism to environmental stimuli, including objects, events, texts, pictures, and so on. The above diagram shows how the inclusion of a human mediator may change the situation of direct learning into that of mediated learning. The Human mediator, indicated by the "H" in the diagram, intervenes in the learning process by placing him or herself between the learner and the stimulus and between the learner and the response. The mediator selects, changes, amplifies and interprets both the stimuli that come to the learner and the learner’s responses. The absence of the necessary type or/and amount of MLE leads to the underdevelopment of the child’s cognitive functions and direct learning strategies. On the other hand massive infusion of mediated learning may improve the situation of cognitive deficiency and turn the child into an independent and self-regulating learner. According to MLE theory, genetic, organic, experiential and socio-cultural factors constitute only distal determinants of the cognitive development. The type and amount of MLE constitute the proximal determinant that can substantially moderate the impact of proximal factors.

Criteria of MLE
Not every interaction that includes a task, a learner and a mediator has a quality of MLE.
To distinguish MLE interactions Feuerstein developed a system of the Criteria of MLE. The first three criteria, Intentionality/reciprocity, Transcendence and Mediation of meaning are universal – they should be present in each one of MLE interactions. Intentionality refers to the mediator’s ability to focus on the learner’s needs and to shape the task according to these needs. Reciprocity refers to the mediator’s willingness to see the students at the "same level" and to be attentive to their responses. MLE interaction should have a Transcendent character going beyond the here and now given task. The criterion of Transcendence ensures that what the student is gaining is a general strategy or approach rather than a narrow skill. Through Mediation of Meaning the mediator conveys to the learner the reason for the learning activity, the significance of the task and interprets the learner’s accomplishment. The above three criteria are essential in defining MLE. Other criteria are context and task specific.

In addition to the Criteria of MLE, the MLE theory includes such theoretical notions as Deficient Cognitive Functions and the Cognitive Map. The theory of MLE provides the theoretical basis to such applied systems as Learning Potential Assessment Device (LPAD) and Instrumental Enrichment (FIE). The inclusion of mediation in the assessment procedure constitutes an essential difference between the IQ type of assessment and the LPAD. Mediation also provides a didactic vehicle for the FIE cognitive intervention program.

The theory of MLE generated a considerable scientific debate including its comparison and contrast with theories of J. Piaget, L.Vygotsky, B.Bloom etc. (see Bibliography and Publications). The MLE theory is included in a number of university courses in different countries, such as University of Exeter in the UK, University of Paris V in France, University of Turin in Italy, University Diego Portales in Chile.

Training in MLE technique is offered in the context of LPAD and IE training courses both in Israel and internationally. In addition, special parental MLE workshops are conducted for parents of children with special needs.

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The Learning Potential Assessment Device (LPAD)
The LPAD is a procedure and a set of instruments that enable us to evaluate the learning process and identify the individual’s cognitive functions, operations and problem solving strategies. The LPAD is based on Feuerstein’s theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability, which proposes that intelligence is dynamic and modifiable, not static or fixed. LPAD offers a viable alternative to static IQ type of tests, because it focuses on the learners’ dynamic potential or propensity rather than their current performance level. The LPAD has an interactive nature with the evaluator actively mediating to the student in the process of assessment.

The goals and procedures of LPAD differ in principle from those of static assessment. The LPAD is process rather than product oriented, it investigates the learner’s process of reasoning rather than the quantifiable answers. LPAD compares the learner’s performance to his or her own performance at different times and different conditions, rather than to the age norm. LPAD evaluates individual learning propensity and cognitive modifiability rather than the current level of performance. LPAD actively produces in the learner a sample of cognitive changes and uses them for evaluation. The outcome of LPAD procedure is a descriptive profile of modifiability that includes the area of cognitive change and degree of change. On the basis of LPAD assessments recommendations are made regarding the psycho-educational intervention, which often includes the Instrumental Enrichment (FIE) program.

The LPAD battery consists of 15 instruments aimed at assessing cognitive processes related to perception, attention, memory, problem-solving, and logical reasoning, including: Organization of Dots, Complex Figure Drawing Test, Reversal Test, Diffuse Attention Test (Lahy), Positional Learning Test, Plateaux Test, Associative Recall (Functional Reduction and Part-Whole), 16 Word Memory Test, Tri-Modal Analogies, Raven Colored Progressive Matrices and Standard Progressive Matrices, Set Variations B-8 to B-12, Set Variations I, Set Variations II, Representational Stencil Design Test (RSDT), Numerical Progressions, Organizer.

LPAD assessment can be carried out both individually and in a group format (10-15 students per group) with a wide range of clients and for a variety of goals. For example, LPAD can be used for assessing children with severe developmental, behavioral and learning problems and developing remediation programs for them. At the same time LPAD in a group format can also be used for selecting adult learners for professional training or pre-academic courses. Parents who would like to receive an LPAD assessment of their child may apply to the Clinical Services of the ICELP.

Training in LPAD is offered to psychologists, educators, speech and occupational therapists, and other professionals both at the ICELP and in the context of International Workshops. The training process includes acquaintance with LPAD instruments, supervised assessment experience, and report writing.

Over the years a considerable body of research literature has been accumulated on the LPAD method, comparison between LPAD and static assessment methods, as well as LPAD and other dynamic assessment methods (see Bibliography). A new revised edition of the foundational study by Reuven Feuerstein et al, The Dynamic Assessment of Cognitive Modifiability was published by ICELP Press in 2002 (see Publications).

Learning Propensity Assessment Device-Basic (LPAD-B)
Target Population: The LPAD-B is an approach to the dynamic assessment of cognitive functions, based on Feuerstein’s theory of structural cognitive modifiability (SCM) and mediated learning experience (MLE) (see elsewhere in this website for descriptions of these concepts). The LPAD-B is directed toward the young child, from approximately three to six or seven years of age, and those older learners who are severely low functioning. In many instances, successful mediation of the instruments of the LPAD-B prepares the learner for the LPAD-Standard, and allows for the further assessment of higher cognitive functions and potential for modifiability. Appropriate candidates for an assessment of this type are those who have presented special learning and developmental needs, or those learners for whom questions of learning potential have been raised.

Goals of the Instruments: There are three important goals of the LPAD-B: assessment of the learner’s needs for and amenability to processes of prevention, acceleration, and/or remediation. For each of these goals, both the content (the specific necessary concepts and skills) and the processes (available strategies, openness to mediation, adaptability) of learning must be assessed, and mediated for the learner to explore the cognitive functions and adaptive potential for change.

Assessment Process and Instruments: The assessment is conducted through a combination of formal and informal evaluation activities. There are currently 16 formal instruments in the LPAD-B battery, organized into four areas:

1. Perceptual-Motor Development: Complex Figure Drawing, Visual Transport, Spatial Orientation, Mazes;
2. Memory: Memory in Two Modalities, Associative Recall: Part-Whole & Functional
3. Concept Development: Progressions, Concept Formation, Part-Whole & Functional Part-Whole;
4. Abstract Thinking: Test for Inferential Thinking, Absurdities, Picture Assembly.

Manipulative puzzles, both flat and three dimensional, are also used to bridge perceptual-motor and concept development functions. Informal assessment occurs through the mediation of pre-requisite skills (concepts and processes necessary to build readiness for the more formal responding, and the mediation that occurs during the general assessment process). The model for dynamic assessment presents the examinee with a cycle of “test-observe-mediate-test-observe-mediate, etc.” The LPAD-B examiner selects from among the instruments a “battery” of tools that enable a systematic and comprehensive assessment, leading to the formulation of a “picture” of functioning, areas of change, response to mediation, and nature of the modifiability observed (a Profile of Modifiability).

Available Materials: LPAD-B Examiner’s Assessment Materials and Examiner’s Manual (in preparation) available only upon the completion of an authorized training experience.

Training Models: The use of the LPAD-B requires the participation in a training workshop, conducted by an ICELP authorized trainer. The purpose of training is to give the examiner a foundation in the theory of SCM and MLE, an understanding of dynamic assessment, and practice with the specific instruments of the battery. The workshop usually comprises lectures, seminars, practice experience and the completion of a written report of an assessment to gain certification as an LPAD-B practitioner (for further information regarding methodology, programs of training, costs of training, please contact ICELP using contact information on this website).

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Click here for Samples of Instumental Enrichment (ppt 8MB)

“Just a minute…let me think”

Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment Program
Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment Program Instrumental Enrichment (FIE) is a cognitive intervention program that can be used both individually and in the classroom framework. The FIE program has been successfully used all over the world as a tool for the enhancement of learning potential and cognitive functioning of children and adults. For individuals with special needs, FIE is used as a remediation program, for higher functioning learners FIE is a tool of cognitive enrichment. To date FIE program has been successfully used in the following frameworks:

• Remedial programs for special needs children.
• Cognitive rehabilitation of brain injured individuals and psychiatric patients.
• Learning enhancement programs for immigrant and cultural minority students.
• Enrichment programs for underachieving, regular and gifted children.
• Professional training and retraining programs in the industrial, military, and business sectors.

FIE was included into the package of educational reform programs recommended by the US Department of Education (see Bibliography and Publications).

FIE as a classroom curriculum is aimed at enhancing the students’ cognitive functions necessary for academic learning and achievement. The fundamental assumption of the program, based on Feuerstein’s theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability and Mediated Learning Experience is that intelligence is dynamic and modifiable, not static or fixed. Thus, the FIE program seeks to correct deficiencies in fundamental thinking skills, provides students with the concepts, skills, strategies, operations and techniques necessary to function as independent learners, increases their motivation, develops students’ metacognition, and in a word helps students learn how to learn.

FIE materials are organized into 14 instruments that comprise paper-and- pencil tasks aimed at such specific cognitive domains as analytic perception, orientation in space and time, comparison, classification, and more. Deliberately free of specific subject matter, the FIE tasks are intended to be more readily transferable to all educational and everyday life situations. The FIE program is mediated by a certified FIE teacher and can be implemented in the classroom setting or as an individual tutoring and remedial teaching device. The FIE materials and teacher manuals have received worldwide recognition and have been translated into 17 languages including all major European and some Asian languages. In addition, there is a Braille version of FIE tools for the blind learners.

Educators, psychologists, but also parents may become certified as FIE teachers after appropriate training. Experienced FIE teachers may receive further certification as FIE Trainers and eventually open their own Authorized Training Center (ATC). Currently there are about 70 ATCs in all parts of the world.

FIE is the most researched of the cognitive intervention programs. A complete Bibliography of FIE research includes hundreds of books, articles, reports, and doctoral dissertations.

By clicking on the links, the viewer will see a sample from each of the 14 instruments of the FIE program. Each sample describes an instrument, provides a summary of the cognitive processes the instrument addresses, and presents a task from the instrument. The sample tasks have been chosen randomly from each instrument and do not necessarily reflect the development of the program.

Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment -Basic (FIE-B)

Target Population: The FIE-B program is directed toward the younger child, from approximately three to 7 years of age, and the very low functioning older individual. It is designed to be used in a classroom group setting, for smaller groups of targeted learners, and as a one-to-one therapeutic intervention. It is designed to provide an “early intervention” to enable students who are a special risk for their development, or those individuals who have not acquired basic foundational knowledge and skills, to respond to the direct world of stimuli and develop the pre-requisite cognitive functions. The use of the FIE-B can be a preparation for the use of the FIE-Standard, taking students to higher levels of mental processing and cognitive functioning.

Goals of the Program: The general goals of the FIE-B are to provide acceleration of cognitive development, the prevention of cognitive dysfunctions, or the remediation of dysfunctions or gaps in skill and cognitive development. It achieves these goals through an emphasis on a systematic exposure to selected necessary content (exposure to information and specific skills that are transformed into working concepts that build toward subsequent learning and development, and the process of how to think.

Nature of the Program: Consistent with the goals of the program, the FIE-B is organized into instruments (currently there are 10 instruments, with additional instruments in preparation to be included in the battery) that reflect the theory of structural cognitive modifiability (SCM) and mediated learning experience (MLE). They are designed to provide both basic content, and mediational process experiences consistent with the overall goals of the program (see above). The instruments can be grouped according to their contribution to the development of the cognitive structure:

1. Instruments that focus on perceptual-motor development, oriented toward learning processes, attention, and planning behavior: Organization of Dots-Basic, Tri-Channel Attentional Learning;
2. Instruments that focus on spatial orientation, emphasizing receptivity to instructions, systematic searching, and crystallization of spatial relationships: Orientation in Space-Basic;
3. Instruments that focus on decoding emotional expression, understanding their social/behavioral correlates, and searching for factors that generate them:Identifying Emotions; From Empathy to Action;
4. Instruments that focus on abstractive/integrative thinking: From Unit to Group; Knowledge; Compare and Discover the Absurd; Thinking to Learn to Prevent Violence;
   Learning to Question for Reading Comprehension.

The pages are presented to the student as a carefully designed and planned lesson, incorporating explicit content and mediational goals. As such, the activities build both content familiarities and thinking strategies in a systematic way, building upon one another and elaborated into diverse modalities of thinking and expression. They are also “bridged” into areas of the student’s life that further extend the concepts learned and make them experientially meaningful.

Available Materials

The FIE-B instruments are available for classroom, small group, and individualized instruction. There is a User’s Guide to Theory and Practice. The potential user of the program must be trained in the application of the program before the materials will be made available.

Training Models

The use of the FIE-B requires training in its application. This training is available through the ICELP and its authorized training centers (ATC). See another section of this website for a list of the ATC’s and their locations throughout the world. Training is currently organized in two phases (Level I and II), each comprising 5 instruments. Each phase usually involves 45 hours of direct training. The training includes an introduction to the theories of SCM and MLE, the applications of cognitive functions and cognitive map concepts to the teaching, learning the specific instruments, and the developing of lesson and teaching plans to implement the program (for further information please contact the ICELP using contact information from this website)

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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 sets rather than structural and elaborational incapacities. Evidence of the reversibility of the phenomena has been provided by clinical and experimental work – especially through dynamic assessment (Learning Potential Assessment Device). The LPAD has also enabled us to establish an inventory of cognitive functions that are undeveloped, poorly developed, arrested and/or impaired. These we have categorized into the Input, Elaborational and Output Levels.

Impaired cognitive functions affecting the Input Level include those impairments concerning the quantity and quality of data gathered by the individual as he is confronted by a given problem, object, or experience. They include:

1. Blurred and sweeping perception.
2. Unplanned, impulsive, and unsystematic exploratory behavior.
3. Lack of, or impaired, receptive verbal tools which affect discrimination (e.g. objects, events, relationships, etc. do not have appropriate labels).
4. Lack of, or impaired, spatial orientation; the lack of stable systems of reference impairs the establishment of topological and Euclidean organization of space.
5. Lack of, or impaired, temporal concepts.
6. Lack of, or impaired, conservation of constancies (size, shape, quantity, orientation) across variation in these factors.
7. Lack of, or deficient, need for precision and accuracy in data gathering.
8. Lack of capacity for considering two or more sources of information at once; this is reflected in dealing with data in a piecemeal fashion, rather than as a unit of organized facts.

The severity of impairment at the Input level may also affect ability to function at levels of elaboration and output, but not necessarily so.
Impaired cognitive functions affecting the Elaboration level include those factors which impede the efficient use of available data and existing cues.

1. Inadequacy in the perception of the existence and definition of an actual problem.
2. Inability to select relevant vs. non-relevant cues in defining a problem.
3. Lack of spontaneous comparative behavior or limitation of its application by a restricted need system.
4. Narrowness of the psychic field.
5. Episodic grasp of reality.
6. Lack of, or impaired, need for pursuing logical evidence.
7. Lack of, or impaired, interiorization.
8. Lack of, or impaired, inferential-hypothetical, “iffy” thinking.
9. Lack of, or impaired, strategies for hypothesis testing.
10. Lack of, or impaired, ability to define the framework necessary for problem-solving behavior.
11. Lack of, or impaired, planning behavior.
12. Non-elaboration of certain cognitive categories because the verbal concepts are not a part of the individual’s verbal inventory on a receptive level, or they are not mobilized at the expressive level.

“Thinking” usually refers to the elaboration of cues. There may well be highly original, creative, and correct elaboration which yields wrong responses, because it is based on inappropriate or inadequate data on the Input level.
Impaired cognitive functions on the Output level include those factors that lead to an inadequate communication of final solutions. It should be noted that even adequately perceived data and appropriate elaboration can be expressed as an incorrect or haphazard solution if difficulties exist at this level.

1. Egocentric communicational modalities.
2. Difficulties in projecting virtual relationships.
3. Blocking.
4. Trial and error responses.
5. Lack of, or impaired, tools for communicating adequately elaborated responses.
6. Lack of, or impaired, need for precision and accuracy in communicating one’s responses.
7. Deficiency of visual transport.
8. Impulsive, acting-out behavior.

The three disparate levels were conceived so as to bring some order into the array of impaired cognitive functions seen in the culturally deprived. Yet, there is interaction occurring between and among the levels, which is of vital significance in understanding the extent and pervasiveness of cognitive impairment.

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Another important way to conceptualize the relationship between the characteristics of a task and its performance by a subject is the Cognitive Map. The conceptual model is not a map in the topographical sense but a tool by which to locate specific problem areas and to produce changes in corresponding dimensions. The Cognitive Map describes the mental act in terms of seven parameters that permit us to analyze and interpret a subject’s performance. The manipulation of these parameters becomes highly important in the examiner-subject interaction in the formation and validation of hypotheses regarding the loci of the subject’s difficulties. The seven parameters are as follows:

1. The universe of content around which the mental act is centered
   The competence with which subjects deal with a specific content is directly related to each subject’s experiential, cultural, and educational background. Certain content may be quite unfamiliar to a subject, and thus may require such an intensive investment for its mastery that it is no longer useful for providing information about the cognitive functions and operations it involves, the real target of the assessment. Manipulation of the content in both assessment and intervention will become a source of insight for change.
2. The modality or language in which the mental act is expressed
   The modality, which may be verbal, pictorial, numerical, figural, symbolic, graphic, or any combination of these and other codes, will affect subjects’ performance. The parameter of modality is important due to the fact that the elaborative capacities revealed by subjects on any single modality may not reflect reliably their capacity if the task were presented in another modality. For example, a subject may be able to complete a mathematical operation successfully when the problem is presented in numbers and signs and fail when the same problem is presented in a verbal modality.
3. The phase of the mental act
   The mental act can be broadly divided into three phases: input, elaboration and output. Although there is an interrelationship among the three phases, a greater or lesser emphasis may be placed on one or another of them by the requirements of a particular mental act. The isolation of the phase (and of the strengths and/or deficiencies of the cognitive functions it contains) helps to locate the sources of inadequate responses and to determine the nature and extent of mediation the examiner must provide.
4. The cognitive operations required by the mental act
   A mental act is analyzed according to the rules or operations by which information is organized, transformed, manipulated, understood and acted upon to generate new information. Operations may be relatively simple (e.g., identification or comparison) or complex (e.g., analogical thinking, transitive thinking, or logical multiplication).
5. Level of complexity
   A mental act is analyzed according to the number of units of information upon which it centers, in conjunction with the degree of novelty or familiarity of the information to the subject.
6. Level of abstraction
   The conceptual or cognitive distance between a given mental act and the object or event upon which it operates defines the level of abstraction. For example, the mental act involved in sorting by producing relationships among objects through perception and motor performance (i.e., concrete – abstract) represents a lower level of abstraction than does a mental act involving an analysis of the relationships among relationships (i.e., abstract – abstract).
7. The level of efficiency with which a mental act is performed
   The level of efficiency of a mental act can be measured objectively by the rapidity and precision with which it is performed, and by the subjective criterion of the experienced amount of effort invested in the performance of the task. The level of efficiency is a function of the degree of crystallization of the mental act and the recency of its acquisition. Processes that are recently acquired and not yet automated are more vulnerable and less resistant to a variety of interfering factors. Lack of efficiency may be due to difficulties in one or more of any of the other six parameters, as well as to a host of physical, environmental, affective and motivational factors which may be transient and fleeting or more pervasive. This parameter is not to be confounded with the question of the subject’s capacity, although in conventional psychometric procedures there is very frequently confusion between the two.

The Cognitive Map is used extensively during dynamic assessment. It plays a critical role in the construction of materials, and in their selection and manipulation during the assessment, in the mediated learning interventions, and in the interpretation of subjects’ performances.
The relationship between the theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability and the Learning Potential Assessment Device is circular. To some extent the operational elements and theory of structural cognitive modifiability have been derived from our work with the Learning Potential Assessment Device, while the LPAD represents an application of the theory of structural cognitive modifiability. The way the theory and practice are interwoven will become evident in the various sections in this website.