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MLE and IE as a Basis of the
Education of the Blind
Reuven Feuerstein, Rafi Feuerstein
The International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential
Jerusalem, Israel
Structural Cognitive Modifiability (SCM)
Human beings are viewed by us as having a unique propensity to change or be modified in the structure of their cognitive functioning, as they respond to changing demands of life situations. Changes occur in response to external stimuli and internal conditions. Change is structural when (a) Change in a part affects the whole to which the changed part belongs; (b) When the very process of change is transformed in its rhythm, amplitude, and direction; and (c) When the produced change is self-perpetuating, reflecting an autonomous, self-regulatory nature. SCM is assumed to occur when the changes are characterized by a certain degree of permanence, pervasiveness, and when they are generalizable. Human beings are viewed as open systems, accessible to change throughout their life spans, and responsive to conditions of remediation, providing that the intervention is appropriately directed (in quantity and quality) to the individual's need.
Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) -
Dimensions and Quality of Interaction
Cognitive development occurs through an individual-environment interaction. This interaction is affected by certain characteristics of the organism (including those of heredity, maturation, and the like) and qualities of the environment (education opportunities, socio-economic status, cultural experience, emotional contacts with significant others). Interaction between the organism and environment may occur: (a) as a direct learning experience, immediately consequent to direct exposure to stimulation, and (b) through a mediated learning experience that requires the presence and activity of a human being to filter, select, interpret, and elaborate that which has been experienced. MLE theory holds that the organismic and environmental facts are distal determinants of cognitive development (causing differential responses to the environment), whereas MLE constitutes the proximal determinant that influences structural cognitive development and the potential for being adaptive to and modified by experience.
For MLE to occur, an intentional human being must interpose him- or herself between the stimuli and the learner's response, with the intention of mediating the stimuli or the response to the learner. This is mediational in the sense that the situation (stimuli and responses) are modified by affecting qualities of intensity, context, frequency, and order, while at the same time arousing the individual's vigilance, awareness, and sensitivity. The interactional experience may have the quality of repeating or eliminating various stimuli, relating events in time or space, or imbuing experience with meaning (see Figure 1).
MLE requires the presence of three parameters that are the object of deliberate attention on the part of the mediator: Intentionality and Reciprocity, Transcendence, and Meaning. In addition, situational variables in the encounter present opportunities to mediate for other important parameters of the experience.
Regulation and control of behavior, feelings of competence, psychological differentiation and individuation, sharing behavior, goal seeking, goal planning, and goal achieving behavior, competence/novelty/complexity, self-change, optimistic choice of alternatives, and feelings of belonging. Each of these parameters offers opportunities for the mediator to make planned and systematic choices to exploit the mediational potential of the situation to encourage cognitive functioning and stimulate modifiability.
Figure 1. Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) Model
SOURCE: Feuerstein, 1979, 1980; Feuerstein & Feuerstein, 1991.
The mediational process extends beyond a simple, task-oriented, product-oriented, coaching/teaching objective toward making the individual able to function independently of specific situations, and it renders the learner able to adapt to the new dimensions that he or she will confront.
MLE significantly affects the individual's capacity to become modified structurally through direct exposure to stimuli. The more MLE acquired by the individual, the more benefit that person derives from direct exposure to learning; the less MLE received, the less a person is able to learn from direct exposure, and the less adaptive the individual will be. This is a central construct for the structure and application of the LPAD as an assessment methodology.
Deficient Cognitive Functions
Inadequate MLE leads to cognitive functions at the input, elaboration, or output phases of the mental act that are undeveloped, impaired, or fragile in their presence and contribution to learning and cognitive behavior.
These deficiencies do not necessarily appear in toto as a complete repertoire of the cognitive characteristics of the low-functioning individual (e.g., the culturally deprived, the learning disabled, etc.). Certain deficiencies may appear in a given individual whereas others may be absent. Accordingly, different individuals will need more or less investment in one function rather than another and be more or less resistant to change, according to the profile of modifiability that emerges from the assessment process. The presence of a deficient cognitive function, the balance between deficiencies and well-established and/or modifiable functions, and their saliency in the profile of the individual will determine the nature of the intervention, according to the amount of resistance encountered and the extent of the investment required to overcome it.
The deficient cognitive functions can be analyzed as they manifest themselves in the three phases of the mental act: the input phase, the elaboration phase, and the output phase. The input and output phases can be described as peripheral compared to the elaboration phase, which is the core of the mental act. This orientation links deficient functions to the phases of the mental act and helps define the specific factors impairing successful mastery of the task, suggesting types of strategies for their correction. Although this division is somewhat artificial (in the sense that the mental activity within these phases indivisible), it helps in both diagnosis and prescription. The interactions occurring between and among the phases are of vital significance in understanding the extent and pervasiveness of cognitive impairment. An additional dimension, the affective-motivational factor, has a significant effect on the three phases of the mental act.
The Input Phase: Deficiencies at the input phase include all those impairments concerned with the quantity and quality of data gathered by the individual in the process of solving a given problem or at early levels of appreciation of the nature of the problem. Some impairments at this phase include:
* Blurred and sweeping perception
* Unplanned, impulsive, and unsystematic exploratory behavior
* Lack, or impairment, of receptive verbal tools that affect discrimination (e.g.,
objects, events, and relationships are not appropriately labeled
* Lack, or impairment, of spatial orientation and lack of stable systems of reference
by which to establish organization in space
* Lack, or impairment, of conservation of constancies (e.g., size, shape, quantity,
color, orientation) across variation in one or more dimensions
* Lack of, or deficient need for, precision and accuracy in data gathering
* Lack of capacity for considering two or more sources of information at one. This
is reflected in dealing with data in a piecemeal fashion rather than as a unit of facts
that are organized.
The Elaboration Phase: Deficiencies at the elaboration phase include those factors that impede the individual's efficient transformation of the available data. In addition to impairments in data gathering, which may or may not have occurred at the input phase, these deficiencies operate to obstruct proper elaboration of whatever cues do exist:
* Inadequacy in the perception of the existeof a problem and its definition
* Inability to select relevant as opposed to irrelevant cues in defining a problem
* Lack of spontaneous comparative behavior or the limitation of its application by
a restricted need system
* Narrowness of the mental field
* Episodic grasp of reality
* Lack of need for the education or establishment of relationships
* Lack of need for an/or exercise of summative behavior
* Lack, or impairment, of need for pursuing logical evidence
* Lack, or impairment, of inferential, hypothetical ("iffy") thinking
* Lack, or impairment, of strategies for hypothesis testing
* Lack, or impairment, of planning behavior
* Lack, or impairment, of interiorization
The Output Phase: Deficiencies at the output phase include those that result in inadequate communication of final solutions. Even adequately gathered data and appropriate elaboration can result in inappropriate expression if difficulties exist for the individual at this phase. Specific difficulties include:
* Egocentric communication modalities
* Difficulty in projecting virtual relationships
* Blocking
* Trial and error responses
* Lack, or impairment, of verbal or other tools for communication adequately
elaborated responses
* Lack, or impairment, of need for precision and accuracy in the communication of
one's responses
* Deficiency in visual transport
* Impulsive, random, unplanned behavior
The Cognitive Map
To understand sources of cognitive impairment, it is necessary to analyze the characteristics of the task to which the individual is required to respond. The analysis is done with the help of the cognitive map, wherein critical elements require the individual to generate responses relevant to the demands of the tasks. These components of the task interact with the cognitive functions in the formulation and production of responses, which may be adequate, appropriate, and facilitative of learning and problem solving, or may combine to generate failing, inadequate, and inefficient performance.
The cognitive map includes seven parameters by which a task can be analyzed: content, modality, phase, operation, level of complexity, level of abstraction, and level of efficiency. Tasks thus require mastery of elements that in turn require adequate cognitive functions for efficient thinking to occur in a process-oriented approach.
Content: Each mental act can be described according to the subject matter with which it deals and the universe of content on which it operates. Experiential and educational background (e.g., prior learning that has been assimilated) and culturally determined saliency (the importance and value as a factor of an individual's cultural experience) lead to differential levels of competency in individuals.
If the content of the task is strange to the learner - and indeed, people differ greatly as to the specific content they are exposed to and familiar with - or if facts, events, or details of the required performance are not within the individual's experiential repertoire, there will need to be an investment in acquiring mastery of this content before the learner can be expected to focus on the cognitive operations that are the target of the assessment. Failure to respond therefore, must be considered in light of the presence of absence of relevant content dimensions embedded in the task, any attempt to evaluate the intelligence of the individual without considering content as a source of success or failure is doomed to do injustice to the individual.
Modality: Tasks may be presented in a variety of language: verbal, pictorial, numerical, figural, or a combination of these other codes, which range from mimicry and paralinguistic communication to conventional signs that are detached from the content they signify. Efficiency in use of specific modalities may differ among individuals because of their preferential modes or because of their differing saliency for particular socioeconomic, ethnic, or cultural groups. It is also a function of specific distal factors (such as neurological or sensory deficits, lack of exposure to specific teaching, etc.).
Functional impairment must be considered in light of the modality required by the task, as well as the range of cognitive functions present in the learner to make possible the reception of stimuli. Inadequate responding can be changed by shifting the modality of presentation of the task and its required expression of solutions. One cannot conclude that an operation is inaccessible to a learner simply on the basis of an inability to perform it in a specific modality. On the other hand, difficulty involved in using a particular modality must be understood in order to be bypassed or challenged, depending upon the goal.
The Phase of the Mental Act: the three phases of the mental act - input, elaboration, and output - may be differentially represented in a given task. When functioning is appropriate, it is difficult to clearly identify the contribution of each specific phase. With failure, however, it is necessary to isolate the responsible phase and understand its role in interfering with performance, as a basis for assessment and intervention. A task that places too much emphasis on input from the individual may disadvantage that individual in subsequent performance. For example, an individual's response may be inadequate because of incomplete, imprecise data gathering, which, even if elaborated properly, would lead to failure at the output phase.
As a dimension of task, examiners must analyze the specific phase requirements or emphases embedded within it to understand failures in performance, and then link them more specifically to the cognitive dysfunction that may be present in the individual. If, for example, the task requires primarily input or output phase functions, performance on the task may be more resistant to change than if elaboration is emphasized, and this may require more investment of time and energy or focus on structural interventions. The analysis of impaired performance in terms of phase helps to locate deficient cognitive functions and the source of difficulties and attribute a differential weight to success or failure. Thus, an arithmetical problem requiring the computation of 100 additions is measurably less difficult than one requiring four types of operations ordered in a given sequence.
Operations: A mental act may be analyzed according to the operations that are required for its accomplishment. An operation may be understood as a group of activities that enable information derived from internal and external sources to be organized, transformed, manipulated, and acted upon in a way that generates new information. In defining the nature of an operation, it is important to identify the prerequisites necessary for its generation and application. For example, classification, seriation, logical multiplication, or analogical, syllogistic, or inferential thinking are more complex in the demands they place upon the individual to use cognitive functions than recognition or comparison.
When the examinee's performance is impaired, the examiner must determine the component elements in the task necessary for the acquisition and/or application of the required elements and assess the presence or level of impairment in the related cognitive functions required to achieve the operation.
Level of Complexity: The level of complexity of a task may be understood as the quantity and quality of units of information required to be handled for its solution. However, this in turn is contingent on the quality of the information, its degree of novelty for the individual, and the level of conceptual organization. The more familiar the units, and the more organized, even if they are multiple, the less complex the act; the less familiar, or organized, the more complex the mental act. It is thus necessary to analyze the task from three perspectives: (a) The number of units of information contained in the task; (b) The degree of familiarity the subject has with the task and its component elements; and (c) The degree of organization, grouping, and categories that allows a reductionof the complexity of the task. Intervention and mediation is then directed toward these dimensions. As these elements are modified by mediation of organization, levels of complexity change, both within tasks and across tasks with similar structures or modalities.
Level of Abstraction: The level of abstraction is defined as a distance between a given mental act and the object or event upon which it operates. Thus, a mental act may involve operations on the objects themselves, as in sorting, or it may involve relationships between hypothetical propositions without direct reference to real or imagined objects and events. The level of abstraction as here defined becomes a source of interpretation of the difficulties the examinee has in acceding to higher levels of functioning, as well as the modification that occurs when such levels become accessible as a result of MLE.
Level of Efficiency: This parameter is qualitatively and quantitatively different than the other six, although it is determined or affected by them, singly or in combination. It is defined as the structure of the task requiring a certain degree of rapidity and precision in order to be solved. A third dimension is the level of effort experienced by the subject as needed to generate or sustain a given performance.
The relationship of level of efficiency to the other parameters may be observed, for instance, where a high level of complexity, attributable to a lack of familiarity, may lead to inefficient handling of a task. The inability to differentiate efficiency from capacity is an important potential source of error in assessment, resulting in faulty labeling and erroneous prognosis. The lack of efficiency, defined as slowness in response generation, reduced production, or imprecision (lack of accuracy), may be totally irrelevant to the propensity of the individual to grasp and elaborate a particular problem and may need to be analyzed from the perspective of other parameters of the cognitive map. Indeed, tasks may differ widely as to the efficiency they require from the performer.
With regard to the dimension of perceived level of difficulty, a variety of task-intrinsic and/or task-extrinsic factors may be present. These can be categorized as affective-energetic factors in performance, and they need to be carefully considered in the analysis of results. Fatigue, anxiety, lack of motivation, and the amount of required investment may all affect the individual in the performance of a task. In addition, the recentness of acquisition of a pattern of behavior must be considered, as behavior not yet automatized or crystallized is more vulnerable to the impact of interfering factors and can thus be described as fragile.
Goals of the Instrumental Enrichment Program
A number of goals can serve as guidelines in the selection and production of tasks to include in programs designed to develop cognitive processes, problem-solving behavior, creative thinking, critical thinking, philosophical modes of thinking, or even lateral thinking (such as is present in the De Bono Program). In order to benefit from any program, students must have the capacity to learn from experiences, whether those experiences are intentionally produced for developing thinking or emerge from informal circumstances that individuals may be exposed to in their daily life. The capacity to learn cannot be considered as universally and equally present in all individuals. Some people benefit from each exposure, be it accidental or incidental, no matter how organized the experience is or whether or not it meant to be a learning situation. Others have an extremely limited capacity to benefit from such learning opportunities. These individuals are exposed to experiences, are confronted with many and often powerful sources of stimuli, and yet are affected by them very little. For disadvantaged learners, it is sufficient to make these stimuli available; they need to help in rendering stimuli accessible to them.
These individuals need to enhance their propensity to use their encounters with stimuli in order to become modified and more experienced by this exposure. They must be rendered more flexible so that their previous ways of thinking and the established schemata can interact with the new data by new ways of perceiving them, new modes of elaborating them, and new and more adequate ways of responding to them. Through this process of assimilating the novel and the more complex and becoming modified by this very process of assimilation in the direction of a better accommodation to the new situation, they will become better able to benefit from experience.
Without this process of enhanced assimilation and accommodation, the simple presentation of data will affect the population of low-functioning individuals very little, if at all.
In other words, the major goal of a program that aims at enriching low-functioning individuals will be to render them permeable to the program by creating in them the prerequisites for learning, that is by increasing their modifiability. To this end, a number of sub-goals are necessary. These sub-goals must guide the construction of the program and the selection of its materials and content. Even more, they must be considered in determining the program's presentation, didactics, and techniques that shape the interaction between the teacher (turned mediator) and the learner (turned mediatee). In the following sub-section, we present the six sub-goals that we chose as the basis for the Instrumental Enrichment program whose major goal is to enable individuals to better learn what is being offered them by life or by education.
Sub-goals of the IE Program
Correction of Deficient Cognitive Functions
The first sub-goal is to correct the deficient cognitive functions referred to previously. What we presented as prerequisites of learning we now define as goals. The over-arching goal aims at correcting the deficient functions that characterize the individual with learning problems and reduced modifiability. This goal requires that the program be designed and applied both implicitly, in the way that tasks are structured, and explicitly, in the way the tasks are presented. The program is, therefore, designed to correct those deficient cognitive functions that are responsible for the reduced learning propensity of the individual.
Thus, in the Instrumental Enrichment program, tasks are shaped so as to compel the learner to invest much more meaningfully in their perception. For instance, the learner is compelled to search at great length for a given figure in a cloud of dots in which the figure is superimposed among others. The act of segregating a given shape in a cloud of dots requires that the perceptual activity be regulated, that impulsivity be inhibited, and the number of dots identified as belonging to the sought-after shape be kept constant until the other dots that belong to it are found. Learners will have to look for strategies to facilitate their search, such as keeping their fingers on two of the dots while looking for the other two missing dots of the square, or finding certain systems of references that facilitate greater efficiency in the process of searching. Perception must be much more accurate than when it is confronted with unequivocal stimuli. Furthermore, by making the task require more than sheer perceptual processes, the learner must actively use cognitive processes to solve the problem.
Thus, in the search for the hidden square, individuals will have to gather more precise data about the model figure. The square's attributes will have to be compared with the attributes of a triangle or quadrangle. For this end, learners will have to use numerical criteria, such as four sides and four angles. The concept of equilaterality will have to be applied, as opposed to the differences in size of the sides of the rectangle. They will have to use the concepts of distance, length, and size. The constancy of the object across changes in its orientation will have to be maintained. From the presence of a given set of dots, the presence of another set must beinferred. From the absence of one particular dot, conclusions will be reached as to the inadequacy of the set under consideration (see Figure 2).
The elaborational process is initiated by confrontation with incompatibilities inherent in the task, which are intended to produce a state of disequilibrium. The immediate feedback of the outcome of their activities will correct may deficiencies on the output level and will create a greater readiness in individuals to control their impulsivity and to check on their hypotheses, restructuring them according to the outcomes of previous trials. Instrumental Enrichment has been shaped by this need to confront the learners with stimuli, experiences, and tasks that correct their specific deficient functions.
Figure 2. Selected tasks from Organization of Dots, page 2.
The individual must seek the necessary dots in an irregular, amorphous cloud so as to project figures identical in size and form to the given model. Successful completion involves segregation of the dots and articulation of the field. Tasks of Organization of Dots become more difficult with increased density of dots, complexity of figures, overlapping and changes in orientation.
Acquisition of Prerequisite Repertoire
The second sub-goal is to equip learners systematically and intentionally with the prerequisite information, verbal labels, types of relationships, and modes of operation that they need to do the exercises. Terms such as square, triangle, parallel, equilateral, central, peripheral, before, after, simultaneous, identical, similar, and opposite are necessary prerequisites whose presence in the individual's repertoire should not be taken for granted, even though, in practice, there may be evidence of their application even by the most low-functioning individual. For purposes of learning and generalizing, however, the explicit meaning of such terms is a precondition for adequate learning. Similarly, operations such as analogical reasoning, logical multiplication, permutations, substitutions, and elisions will have to become active and explicit components of the repertoire of the individual's mental functioning.
This second sub-goal is achieved mostly through the active intervention of teachers/mediators who interpose themselves between the learner and the task and, according to their knowledge of the individual's need, introduce the vocabulary, operations, and strategies necessary for the mastery of the tasks. This sub-goal should not be seen as the specific content of learning, even though it represents the content aspect of the program, which itself is not content-oriented.
Production of Generalization and Transfer
The third sub-goal is to build into the program itself a propensity for generalization and transfer as a dimension of the learning process. This sub-goal, the most neglected in many other programs, is mainly achieved through the creation of insight and opportunities to activate this propensity immediately. Teachers/mediators interpose themselves between the learners and the tasks and help in the analysis of the processes involved in solving a specific task. The mediator interprets to the learners the meaning of these processes and the way such processes can be applied in a variety of situations. Insight enables the learner to recognize that the functions that have been applied in a given task are relevant and applicable in others. Insight is also oriented towards discovering (through a self-reflective process) the kinds of changes produced in one's own cognitive structure by exposure to given experiences. These will be the source of new strategies applicable to other situations. Thus, insight will become an effective and powerful tool in producing transfer of the acquired elements and their generalization over situations differing from those to which the individual has been exposed.
Insightful learning, leading to generalization and transfer, relies heavily on the concept of transcendence, taken from the mediated learning experience. Mediators do not interact with the learner only to the extent that the current task requires; they go beyond the immediacy of the needs of the current situation into other areas of functioning that the individual may be called upon to fulfill. Many of the programs that fail to generalize and transfer to other tasks have failed because there was no provision for those elements that would ensure that such generalization and transfer would occur; they relied heavily on what the processes themselves would do. It was supposed individuals who were given a set of principles would apply them spontaneously, by themselves, because development was assumed to be spontaneous and from within, outwards. The social origins of generalization and transfer have been neglected very badly. They originate in a mediated orientation toward such processes. Through the transcendent nature of their interactions, the mediators orient individuals toward a process of generalization.
In Instrumental Enrichment, for instance the passage from learned rules, principles, strategies, and habits to other areas that are unrelated to the initial task is accomplished through what we refer to as bridging. The process of bridging consists in creating a certain orientation of the individual's mental activities. The individual is constantly oriented to seek
areas of affinity between situations that warrant the application of the same principle. Transfer is ensured by the individual's acquired propensity toward comparing situations in terms of their commonality and difference; by an orientation toward facilitating problem-solving behavior by referring to previous experiences; by the use of the solutions of previous experiences; and by the selection of specific strategies, or modes, or styles (see Fig.3).
Figure 3. Selected tasks from Numerical Progressions, page 21.
The tasks of Numerical Progressions, presented in a numerical and graphic modality, deal with establishing the rule governing the relationship between objects and events and using that rule to explain the past and anticipate the future. The preceding tasks illustrate higher order relationships that are not readily discerned. The principle that is revealed is readily bridged to family relationships, or divisions of the atom, or the phenomenon of chain letters.
The teacher as mediator not only activates one particular individual in the classroom, but enriches that person's propensity to generalize through the participation of the whole group, which offers the variety and diversity of its particular experiences, thus fostering divergent thinking. Insight, defined here largely as metacognition, orients the individual toward the search for the mental process to master a given task. This metacognitive activity, involving self-reflection control, leads to activating a variety of cognitive processes that will enhance meaningfully the structural nature of the changes produced by learning. For example, the current task may be compared to a past task in which difficulty was experienced. Following this comparative behavior, the current task will be solved more easily by application of a strategy that was found to be efficient in the previous situation.
Development of Intrinsic Motivation
The development of an intrinsic motivational system is the fourth sub-goal that must be kept in mind in developing programs for the disadvantaged learner. This intrinsic motivation is necessary in order to ensure that the learner will apply those learned rules, principles, sets, strategies, and problem-solving behaviors to situations in which there is not explicit demand to do so, as in the classroom (in particular), or in life situations (in general), it is not enough to know that there is a strategy. In order for it to be applied, one must also be motivated to use it. Such motivation may be extrinsic, as when one is specifically asked to implement the strategy; but such situations are rarely present in the life of disadvantaged individuals, whose encounters with situations that demand higher order thinking may be velimited (at least as long as they function as disadvantaged, both in school and at home).
The motivation to use adequate cognitive processes may become possible through an internalization and intrinsically determined activation of part of the repertoire of functioning. One disadvantage of many available programs is that intrinsic motivation, as a determinant of behavior is not addressed. Producing intrinsic motivation is especially important for disadvantaged learners. The great problem is how intrinsic motivation can be produced where it does not exist. The disadvantaged learner is often very much of a "realist", seeking types of skills or information that can best serve in immediate encounters with situations. When it comes to intellectual higher order mental processes, internal needs rarely animate. There is a pragmatism in grasping the easiest way to perform and achieve immediate goals.
How, then, can we produce intrinsic motivation towards types of functioning that are not always needed and not necessarily economical? What types of investment are required in order to endow the low-functioning individual with a motivation that is detached from the immediately experienced, extrinsically generated need? To deal directly with low-functioning individuals, we must confront this question. Our answer is that intrinsic motivation can be equated with habit formation. A habit is an intrinsic way of determining behavior. In certain cases, the habit is not contingent on any situational constraints. In some extreme cases, it is even incompatible with extrinsic needs. When we are habituated to do something, we do not do it because it is necessary, but because we have the habit of doing it. The habit itself makes it necessary that act be performed in a specific way.
Habit formation has been badly neglected in an era when everything has had to rely on internal reconstruction, on discovery learning, and on a spontaneous and fluid kind of approach. Many educators have fought against habit formation, which has been considered - and rightly so - as too mechanical, less thought-through, and as having no requirement for the fluid intelligence that is applied in operational thinking. Habit formation, therefore, has been totally neglected in programs in which thinking rules and problem solving are the major goals. Principles that are taught are applied to a situation in the immediate experience episodically and spuriously, leaving place for another principle to be taught. All that is taught remains on the level of fluid intelligence. There is no purposeful, intentional way of producing a crystallized form of thinking in the learner.
Habit formation usually relies heavily on a repetitive, rote type of learning. It requires repeating the same thing until it gets applied mechanically. The question, therefore, is to what extent should rote, mechanical learning be used in order to form habits of thinking and functioning? The damage that may be produced in the motivation of individuals (in having them do things they do not like to do), and to the fluidity of their thinking (by making them do things without having to think) may be greater than the benefit derived from forming habits of cognitive functioning.
In attempting to solve this problem, which sounds very much like "squaring the circle," we have used a Piagetian concept initially termed by J.M. Baldwin as the "circular reactions." We have made sure that habit formation through repetition of the same principle will never become purely mechanical. We achieved this by designing tasks that repeat themselves in one or two of the parameters they have in common but change in other parameters. A need has always been created to rediscover the familiar, the mastered part of certain skills in situations that constantly become different, more complex, more novel. Even when the same rule is applied, it will always be done with the help of more fluid types of thinking, by rediscovery, and by shaping the known element so it will fit the situation that was previously unknown. This need to create habits is addressed in Instrumental Enrichment by producing numerous repetitions of the same principle, but never applying it mechanically or blindly nor using exactly the same situation. The repetitive tasks require a great effort of discovery and restructuring. The goal of producing intrinsic motivation through habit formation makes the program require more time than does a usual enrichment program in which principles and rules are taught in a hit-and-run fashion, with hopes that by hitting and running the goal will be attained (see Figure 4).
The need to crystallize the acquired cognitive processes is felt mostly in the input and output phases of the mental act, which are more resistant to change than the elaboration phase and, therefore, require much more investment in order to reach higher levels so automatization and efficiency. Thus, in order to make individuals with blurred, sweeping perception invest more and focus longer in order to reach a greater level of clarity and accuracy in the perceived, many situations must be created in which this will be imposed by the nature of the task. The same is true in the output phase. Inhibiting impulsivity in the output level is not achieved by imparting to the individual the meaning of control of impulsivity. It will require a neutralization of the original determinant of impulsivity and then the undoing of the habit that has become established through long years of practice. Undoing a habit is best achieved by substituting another and more desirable one for it. Formation of a new habit requires more effort and is spread over longer periods of time.
Figure 4. Orientation in Space I, page 5.
The preceding task illustrates the controlled repetition of the same principle. The field must be constantly restructured for mastery. The instrument, Orientation in Space I, introduces a personal, stable system of reference by which to describe spatial relationships. It also seeks to develop and enhance the use of representation and the ability "to put oneself in the shoes of the other". A transcendent goal of the instrument is to develop an understanding and tolerance for ideas and attitudes that stem from perspectives different from one's own.
Follow-up research (Rand, Mintzker, Miller, and Hoffman, 1981) found an increase in the effects of Instrumental Enrichment with time elapsed after cessation of the program, a fact at least partially explained by the process of consolidation and crystallization of the cognitive habits. Time has thus acted as a reinforcer rather than as a weakening determinant of the acquired cognitive functions (see Figure 5).
Habit formation adds the dimension of efficiency to the mental act. Efficiency (defined later as the "rapidity-precision" complex and feeling of ease by which a given task is performed) is strongly dependent on whether the program allows for habit formation. The more habit formation, the greater the efficiency. The greater the efficiency, the more chances that the individual will use the acquired cognitive functions, because it will be easier, require less investment, and hence be more economical.
Figure 5. Divergent Effects of Instrumental Enrichment
Differences between Instrumental Enrichment and general enrichment groups on PMA and Army "Dapar" mean standard scores at pre, mid, post, and follow-up stages indicate that nearly 2 years after the cessation of intervention, the positive effects of IE intervention continue to grow. Differences between the two groups closely resemble a linear, rather than a quadratic, model.
Development of Task-Intrinsic Motivation
The fifth sub-goal is the creation of task-intrinsic motivation. This requires producing types of tasks that will entice the disadvantaged learner and stimulate a readiness to act in response to the appeal of the task itself. To be stimulating, Instrumental Enrichment makes these tasks accessible to learners by offering them the necessary mediation, carefully gauged to individual needs, to help them succeed.Once the learners are successful, the mediator leaves them to work independently. The task may be complex, but the learners' competency is not based on their previous experiences. We have carefully avoided making success contingent on previously known units of information. The complexity of the task relates only to the mental act that the individual will have to perform to solve the problem, with very little reference to previous experiences. Of course, some individuals will be more advantaged when confronted with these tasks because of their greater generalized or specific experience. However, even the advantaged must invest again and again when they are confronted with the same task. Teachers themselves must invest and make an effort when presented with our materials. In certain cases, their effort is even accompanied by their feeling, "How is it possible that I cannot do what the children are supposed to learn, and I must make an effort to do what the children will have to learn with ease?" Usually, the training problems aimed at problem-solving are easily mastered by the teachers. By its very nature, the complexity of its tasks, and its independence from demands for previous learning, the IE program is a target worthy of mastery by individuals with a proficient education, as well as being interesting and appealing to the disadvantaged who have had very little or very inefficient modes of learning.
This task-intrinsic motivation, which is produced by the very nature of the tasks, has both a substantive and a social aspect. The substantive aspect is, of course, the nature of the mental operation in which the individual becomes engaged while doing the tasks, which tends to become "addictive" because it is both challenging and a source of success. Some of the children cannot stop doing the exercises. Some adults, as well, experience this because of the challenge of the exercise and the prospects of success. In many instances, low-functioning individuals may initially be frustrated when they see themselves caught in a task in which they have to invest, because they have never done anything requiring from them more than a very fleeting, sweeping kind of perception and attention. They may actually tear up the page of exercises. But if the mediator has enabled them to experience a first success, they come back slowly, so that what was initially a source of frustration becomes enticing. Then the task-intrinsic motivation and curiosity emerge, not only about the task but also about themselves ("How will I be able to do it?", "How much better will I be able to do it at a later stage?", How much more difficult will the tasks be that I will be able to do later?"). Indeed, some of the learners, having once experienced success, request more difficult tasks. This kind of task-intrinsic motivation is very seldom experienced with disadvantaged, dysfunctional learners. They usually avoid learning. They also avoid anything that is new because of the difficulties it presents to them. This behavior is followed by the evasion and lack of persistence that so strongly mark the disabled learner.
Another positive aspect of task-intrinsic motivation is the social meaning that the mastery of such tasks bears for the learner. The learner - child or adult - learns the worth of this type of activity as a socially valued and appreciated experience. Many of the children in the classroom situation who have experienced constant failure learn through Instrumental Enrichment for the first time that they can do as well as the more successful students do in subject-matter areas. Furthermore, the nature of the tasks is such that they require a constant rediscovery even when they are presented to initiated, experienced learners, including the teacher, who have performed the tasks before. A constant need exists for investment each time they are confronted with similar tasks. Even if, admittedly, the will need less investment, nevertheless they will not be able to perform just by looking at the task. Learners cannot solve the problem by simple recognition, they must restructure and rediscover the problem. The tasks have been shaped in a way that will make such discovery possible, but it requires a reinvestment. Teachers and students then realize that they are very close to each other in doing these tasks and that the relationship in the teacher/mediator-task-student triangle is much more equilateral than in any other instructional experience (see Figure 6).
Figure 6. Teacher-Student-Material Relationship.
In teaching curriculum material, the teacher is usually very familiar with the lesson's content. Students perceive the teacher and material as a unit and feel very distant from both. In Instrumental Enrichment, however, the teacher-mediator and student confront the tasks together. This cooperative relationship makes the distance from the material the same for both. The teacher-student-material interactions more closely resemble an equilateral triangle.
Changing the Role of the Learner
The sixth sub-goal, probably the most important in dealing with the disadvantaged students, is to create a feeling of not being just passive reproducers of units of information offered to them ready-made, but as people who are called upon to generate new information that would not come into existence without their direct contribution. In many instances, deficiencies in the functioning of the disadvantaged, deficiencies in their learning process, are the direct result of a view of themselves as the recipients of information and, at best, the reproducers of the received information, without any pretense or even readiness to see themselves in the role of those who are called on able to produce information. In many instances, programs designed to create higher mental processes offer the learner problems that are matched to the presumed repertoire of prerequisites of thinking, the componential skills, and the motivation to solve them.
Success in such programs is built on the conditions for solving the tasks, which presuppose certain prerequisites. However, low-functioning learners do not possess these prerequisites. They will not be able to solve such problems unless they are properly and systematically prepared for them and unless they are equipped, through previous focused intervention, with the necessary conditions for such problem-solving behavior. Presenting tasks that require the production of new modes of thinking, new strategies, and the discovery of rules in situations not previously experienced leads toward their perception and awareness of themselves as generators and creators of new information, which is essential in solving problems. Many of the individuals experience this change as having a significant impact on their lives.
Low-functioning students often attribute their failure to that to which they have not been exposed. If they do not function properly, they comment "I have never learned it. Nobody taught me. I have never been told to learn it," as if everything one knows depends on external sources information. This affects the output phase of the mental act, turning even a properly elaborated problem into a failing response, just because the students do not dare think they will ever be able to respond to something about which they have never been told. Programs addressing themselves to low-functioning learners have to create the situations, the modes of presentation, and the interpretation that will convey to that learner, "Yes, you are the generator of information and thereby can be engaged in the processes of discovery and creativity, and in more efficient learning."
The Relevance of the IE Program for Blind Learners
There are two major reasons for the application of the IE program with a broad range of the blind learners. First, the IE program can substantially enhance their mental imagery and mental representations; second, the Braille IE program amplifies the blind learners' exploratory skills and makes them more sensitive to perceptual experience.
By its very nature blindness imposes serious limitations the learners' mental imagery. This, in turn, may influence such mental operations as comparisons, categorization, encoding and decoding of information, and symbolic representation of objects and processes. The absence of the above mentioned cognitive prerequisites may negatively affect the learner's ability to benefit from formal education and spontaneous learning experiences. Two predominant forms of perception used by the blind learners, auditory and tactile, both have a successive character. While the sighted person simultaneously perceives the entire scene complete with many objects and details, the blind learners are forced to use tactile exploration successively moving from one element to another.
We believe that the Braille version of the Instrumental Enrichment program is capable of providing an answer to both of the above mentioned problems, the cognitive prerequisites of learning and the creation of quasi- simultaneous tactile perception of images and schematic representations.
The specific technique for adapting the Instrumental Enrichment program to the needs of the blind learners is described in Roman Gouzman's chapter. We would just like to mention here that the support of the Emouna Foundation was essential in the development of the first IE instruments in Braille, while a grant from the Arison Foundation allowed us to continue this project.
eb/mle and ie - blind/11.99