Cognition, Education, and Deafness: Directions for Research and Instruction

Application of Feuerstein's Mediated Learning Construct to Deaf Persons

Application of Feuerstein's Mediated Learning Construct to Deaf Persons Kevin J. Keane Cognitive competence refers to the structural ability to adequately adjust and adapt to life situations (Scarr, 1981). In this context, structure refers to the cognitive/intellective and affective schemas that promote adaptations to novel situations. Beyond the biologicallphysiologicallevel, the construction of these sl;hemas, according to Feuerstein (1979), is affected by two modalities of learning: direct learning experience and mediated learning experience . Through direct exposure, an individual is constantly bombarded by stimuli; the· individual's reactions to these stimuli produce lasting effects in his or her behavioral repertoire. In mediated exposure, direct experience with environmental stimuli is transformed through the actions of an "experienced , intentioned, and active human being" (Feuerstein, 1979, p. 110). Through a repertoire of actions-such as selecting stimuli for exposure, framing environmental events, focusing the individual in terms of salient aspects, and feeding back environmental events-the mediating agent orients and organizes the phenomenological world for the child. In so doing, this caring person transmits appropriate learning sets and habits "which in turn become important ingredients of his [the child's] capacity to become modified [structurally changed] through direct exposure to stimuli" (Feuerstein , 1980, 16). According to Feuerstein's (1979, 1980) mediated learning theory, then, both modalities of learning (i.e., direct learning and mediated learning) are perceived as essential to development. However, the contention is that through mediated learning, the ability of the individual to benefit from direct experience is not only enhanced but is essential for continued direct exposure learning. The importance of mediated learning experience (MLE) is underscored by Feuerstein as a "prerequisite to effective, independent, and autonomous use of environmental stimuli by the child ... and to the development of an attitude toward thinking and problem-solving that is actively and efficiently involved in organizing the world of stimuli impinging on the individual from both internal and external sources" (1979, pp.71-72). Insufficient mediated learning exposure results in cultural deprivation (Le., an alienation from one's own culture) marked by a significant reduction in the ability of an individual to adapt to and become modified by his or her own culture. This alienation may be produced by a number of determinants , including sociological, geopolitical, psychophysical, and economic conditions (Feuerstein, 1979). Feuerstein stressed that the concept of cultural deprivation in this framework "refers to an intrinsic criterion of the specific culture, namely the lack of the process inherent to the concept of culture itself: intergenerational transmission" (p. 39). Thus, emphasis is placed The complete version of this paper is available in microfiche or hard copy from ERIC Document Reproduction Service. Ask for Document No. ED 249 743. 141 Measurement of Cognitive Potential in Hearing-Impaired Learners upon the intergenerational communication or transmission of culture as opposed to popular notions of culture involving group organizations and the by-products or artifacts of that culture. Furthermore, in formulating this definition, Feuerstein rejected the more commonly accepted referent of an "extrinsic criterion by which the culture of certain ethnic subgroups is considered as depriving their members, thereby negatively affecting their cognitive capacities" (p. 39). Hence, culture itself in the philosophy of mediational learning cannot be viewed as a depriving factor. Mediated Learning Theory and the Deaf Feuerstein (1979, 1980) has delineated a number of cognitive deficiencies that are manifest in a culturally deprived (MLE-deprived) individual. Similar cognitivelbehavioral deficiencies have been noted in studies with deaf populations (Altshuler, 1964; Altshuler, Deming, Vollenweider, Rainer, & Tender , 1976; Binder, 1970; Chess & Fernandez, 1980; Hess, 1960; Levine, 1956, 1981; Myklebust, 1960; Rainer, Altshuler, Kallmann, Deming, 1969), along with parallels in academic retardation (Bonvillian, Charrow, & Nelson, 1973; Cooper & Rosenstein, 1966; Furth, 1966; Levine, 1981; Tomlinson-Keasey & Kelly, 1978). Levine (1976), for example, has indicated that as a group the deaf population mirrors the performance of traditionally defined culturally disadvantaged individuals along certain cognitivelbehavioral parameters of performance. Likewise, Schlesinger and Meadow (1972) and Sarlin and Altshuler (1978) have observed similarities between these two populations in certain aspects of psychological adaptation and attainment. The suggested similarity between deaf and culturally disadvantaged individuals may be a reasonable hypothesis, given (a) Feuerstein's (1979, 1980) notion of cultural deprivation (which is proximally linked to a breakdown in the intergenerational transmission of culture) and (b) the environmental milieu in which most hearing-impaired children are raised. For example, more than 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents; for the majority of these parents, their own child is their first encounter with the...