Mediated Learning... Beginning

Well, this is a little embarrassing.

Last February, I mentioned that I want to dedicate Mondays to writing about Mediated Learning and how we are using it in our home. Since then, I have written a grand total of ZERO posts about it.

Well, better late than never!

I'll be posting my notes on the book Mediated Learning: Teaching, Tasks, and Tools to Unlock Cognitive Potential starting this Monday. For real this time, the posts are already in my Drafts here and set to publish. But, since it has been awhile since I've talked about it, I've decided that the best way to begin is to re-post my blog about why I am studying Mediated Learning in the first place. I hope you'll return Monday to learn more along with me. If you're interested in learning more right away, might I suggest hopping over to Holly's blog at 5 Minute Mom? She's been blogging about mediated learning for a while now and has a nice overview there. And the folks at Wisdom Homeschool have a lot more information there too. And starting Monday, I'll be writing about it here. I hope you'll join me.



Here's my post from last February...


As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to dedicate Mondays to writing about Mediated Learning and how we are using it within our home. Since it's been a while since I've talked about it here, I thought I'd re-post some of my brief introduction to it from last April.

The goal of Mediated Learning is to help the learner learn how to learn from his/her environment. In other words, it seeks to help the student to eventually be self-taught. The emphasis is on developing the cognitive processes necessary to learn from the world around him, without the need of a mediator or dumbed down explanation. Professor Feuerstein, the creator of the mediated learning method and an internationally renowned Israeli professor of child psychology for over 50 years, rejects the belief that people are born with a certain intelligence that remains fixed throughout life. He has shown that people all have the potential to change and are able to improve their cognitive skills if they are provided with opportunities to engage in the right kind of interactions. In fact, he has many amazing case studies that show the effectiveness of his methods and I'd encourage you to check out them out for yourself.


This is our eventual goal for LB, independence and the ability to cope with and thrive in his natural environment.

While I've got quite a few notes from the workshops I've already attended that I need to review, I felt that I needed to get a more basic understanding of what Mediated Learning is and how it works. At the first seminar, I purchased this book: Mediated Learning: Teaching, Tasks, and Tools to Unlock Cognitive Potential. I've begun an intense study of it and hope to share what I learn here on this blog. I've found that forcing myself to narrate what I've learned really helps to cement things in my mind and that is my main reason for blogging my study. But, I also hope to share whatever I learn with anyone who comes across my notes in case they may find some benefit from it.


I am feeling such a renewed sense of optimism for LB's future now and am excited to find where this new journey into his education will take us! YAY!

While this explains, briefly, why I am pursuing this area of study, there are a few other things I need to mention. I came upon some research recently that showed positive outcomes for its use with autistic students. You can read the paper summary here (pdf document). I also need to share a little anecdote that is included in the book I mentioned above, Mediated Learning: Teaching, Tasks, etc. Beginning on page 4, the story of "M" is shared along with an explanation of the different approaches to dealing with such a case. From the book...

THE CASE OF M
Eleven years ago, M was referred to the Feurerstein Institute for life-long placement in custodial care. At the time of his referral, he was 15-years-old and his IQ, according to the reports, was in the 35-44 range. His vocabulary consisted of 40-50 words and he manifested severe impairment of spatio-temporal orientation, imitation, retention, and social behavior. Echolalia (repetition of words) and echopraxia (repetition of movement) were observed, but no psychotic-autistic signs were detected. Trainability had been considered very poor, and custodial care seemed unavoidable.


M was the second of three brothers. His father, a schizophrenic, alcoholic and poorly adjusted Foreign Legion soldier, met and married M's mother in an Asian country. The mother was retarded and illiterate and died as a  hospitalized, diagnosed psychotic. M suffered from brain damage caused by prematurity and low weight at birth and required prolonged incubator care. His infancy was marked by nutritional difficulties and by repeated and prolonged separations in nurseries and foster homes. His early adolescence was spent largely in socially and educationally restrictive environments.

The book goes on to detail two main approaches to dealing with such a case. The passive approach focuses on accepting M's abilities as they are now. The past is seen as insurmountable and the task is to find a place where M can function within his current state of ability. This is all too often the course of action with these difficulties. I mean, really, this boy's past seems to doom him and, at the age 15, many, if not most, would see M as too old to learn how to function in regular society. He seems doomed to live out his days in a very restricted environment.

Feuerstein takes a different and active approach to this case. He sees this boy's past as merely a starting point. What he looks for is the boy's ability to change, to learn and to grow. His intelligence is not measured as a fixed state but as something that can grow with intensive intervention. All too often, we hear that a student who is 15 is beyond educating. The prevailing notion seems to be that once the brain matures, it is fixed and unable to repair itself any further. Feuerstein maintains that the brain is capable of growing and learning throughout the lifespan.

Back to the book...

Consider the actual outcome of the case of M as reported by Feuerstein.


Contrary to all expectations, our assessment of M, using the learning Potential Assessment Device, yielded a surprising level of modifiability. Accordingly, M was placed in a foster home, group care treatment program for the redevelopment of severely disturbed, low functioning adolescents. As a result of the intensive and concerted investment in M's development over the past 11 years, he has emerged as an independently functioning individual, oriented in space and time, with a full and rich command of spoken and written Hebrew, a sense of humor, social skills, and vocational ambitions. He is responsible for the maintenance of a large indoor swimming pool and has learned to speak French and some German.


In spite of M's charged heredity, organic damage, maternal deprivation, and stimulus deprivation from his restricted early environments, all of which are considered responsible for retarded performance, he proved receptive to intervention, albeit of a sustained and systematic nature. The development of his capacity to use hierarchically higher levels of cognitive processes, such as representational, anticipatory and inferential thinking, to a large extent determined his general behavioral adaptations. Thus his entire destiny was changed from anticipated placement in life-long custodial care to the life of an autonomous, independent, adaptive young man, looking forward to building a future and starting a family.

How does this relate to LB or others with autism? All too often, we hear of sensory problems afflicting those with autism. I firmly believe that in my son's case, his problems with over-sensitivities to light and sound interfered with his development. I am convinced that the vast majority of those diagnosed with autism are suffering physical problems that interfere with learning and may even make learning from the environment painful. The child who is deaf suffers when learning to communicate but is generally still able to fully use their other senses to compensate. The child with over-sensitive hearing learns to simply turn their hearing off. Instead of using their other senses to compensate for their troubled hearing, they avoid the painful and loud environment and run to one that is more static and less painful. In some cases, these sensitivities are tempered with age. Or, other compensations are made so that the autistic person can cope with the difficulties more easily. However, there is still all the early learning that did not take place that must occur. By the time this happens, most educators take the passive approach and assume that there is no hope for improvement. Feuerstein's active and optimistic approach is the one that I want to adopt and gives me hope for LB's future. This, ultimately, is why we are pursuing Mediated Learning in helping our son.