Reuven Feuerstein is acknowledged as one of the leading psychologists of his generation. His methods are recognised around the world as effective in schools, adult education programmes, therapeutic programmes and industry.

Feuerstein's programme of intervention, Instrumental Enrichment is based on theories which, simply stated, hypothesise that thinking skills can be taught and learned and that these skills are transferrable and usable in all areas of life.

Introduction to Feuerstein's Theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability and Mediated Learning Training Programme in Instrumental Enrichment

Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment (IE) is one of three applied systems of the theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability (SCM) and Mediated Learning (MLE), the other two being a dynamic assessment tool, the Learning Potential Assessment Device (LPAD), and a framework for the shaping of Modifying Environments (ME). It is a multidimensional intervention method comprising a theoretical foundation, an enriched repertoire of practical instruments and a set of analytical didactical tools, focusing on each of the three components in a mediational interaction, namely the learner, the stimulus and the mediator, with the view of increasing the effectiveness of the learning process.

On account of its theoretical basis, the diversity of its materials and its instrumental nature, IE is applied to a remarkably wide range of diverse populations, from culturally deprived and learning disabled individuals to gifted underachievers, with brain damaged and psychiatric patients as well as in teacher training frameworks, with parents of children at risk and in adult continuing education. The materials of IE can be used for remedial teaching in rehabilitative educational frameworks as well as for mainstream education.

The programme consists of 14 instruments which are characterised by their structural build-up, their instrumental nature and freedom of content. Each of them focuses on one or two main mental operations, such as comparison, spatial orientation, analysis, categorisation, inferential thinking, and the cognitive prerequisites underlying each of them. The tasks are of a more or less abstract nature and the student does not need to have a high level of prior content knowledge to accomplish them. The instruments help the students develop strategies and working habits they can apply to problem solving situations and generalise rules and principles which can be transferred to a wide range of scholastic as well as extracurricular domains and contexts. In order to create insight and reflective thinking, the students are encouraged by the IE teacher to come up with examples in which the newly acquired strategies and principles are bridged and applied in real life situations.

Goals of Instrumental Enrichment:

The main goal of Instrumental Enrichment is to enhance the cognitive modifiability and social adaptability of the individual, so as to increase his capacity to benefit from his direct exposure to environmental stimuli and life experiences.

To help achieve this central goal, six subgoals have been formulated:

• Correction of deficient cognitive functions - The first subgoal of IE is to correct deficiencies in the cognitive prerequisites of operational thinking, i.e. the cognitive functions, which failed to develop in the learner mainly as a result of lacking mediated learning experiences or because of the learner's inability to benefit from mediational interactions he may have had. To give but a few examples in achieving this goal, the mediator would help the learner develop adequate thinking strategies, restrain impulsivity, be precise and systematic in data gathering, identify and define problems, select relevant clues, devise a plan of action and avoid trial and error, form and confirm hypotheses, look for logical evidence and reflect before responding.

• Acquisition of vocabulary, differentiated labels and concepts relevant to the IE tasks as well as problem solving in general - The second subgoal consists of providing the learner with the language and verbal tools necessary for the analysis of internalised mental processes, thus facilitating control and insight into his cognitive functioning. Beyond the mastery of the specific content and language of the task, IE aims to equip the learner with an enriched and differentiated linguistic repertoire of spatio-temporal concepts, accurate definitions and precise verbal labels representing different relationships, mental operations and cognitive functions that form the basis of any problem solving ability.

• Production of intrinsic motivation through habit formation - Eliciting an intrinsic motivation in the learner is considered an indispensable prerequisite to any intervention aiming at the development of thinking skills and cognitive processes, in order to prevent a state of continuous dependency of the individual on extrinsic motivational sources that are not always offered by the environment. To achieve that, IE aims at shaping and consolidating efficient cognitive functioning into a set of habits that tend to emerge spontaneously in the learner's behaviour, independently of any external need.

• Creation of insight and reflective thinking - The fourth subgoal consists of creating an awareness in the learner as to the implicit relationship between different modes of reasoning and the consequent results of his cognitive functioning. In place of the frequent tendency to attribute failure and success to external conditions or mere chance, the mediator uses IE to help develop an orientation in the learner towards his own self and his internal mental processes that are to be held responsible for adequate or inadequate behaviour.

• Creation of task intrinsic motivation - The fifth subgoal relates to the type of motivation that may originate from the sense of completion and mastery of a task and from the social value attached to its successful accomplishment. The IE programme, intentionally dissociated from familiar domains of specific contents and traditional scholastic subject matters, helps the mediator create in the learner the motivation to become involved with tasks that are considered attractive and challenging for the sake of the feeling of satisfaction elicited upon achieving them.

• Shift from role of passive recipient and reproducer of data to role of active generator of new information - The sixth subgoal of IE concerns the need to change the self image of the student, who often perceives himself as capable only of passively registering and retrieving data provided from external sources, so that he may conceive of himself as an active thinker, capable of generating new information on the basis of adequately gathered and elaborated data.