Western culture places children and adults who are “different” in boxes and labels them. But world-renowned Israel Prize winner Prof. Reuven Feuerstein believed in brain plasticity or malleability.
An Israeli clinical, developmental, and cognitive psychologist known for his theory of intelligence, Feuerstein was director of the International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential (ICELP) that he established in Jerusalem in 1965.
The Feuerstein Method addresses the plasticity of the brain and everyone’s ability to improve their cognitive ability and intelligence – from children with Down syndrome or those on the autistic spectrum to students who have been integrated into the various schools and are improving their abilities in mathematics, reading, thinking, and more.
Feuerstein’s theory on the malleability of intelligence has led to more than 2,000 scientific research studies and myriad case studies within various learning populations. The conditions of these populations are not static, studies show. They can be modified and improved with the correct techniques.
Rafi Feuerstein takes the baton
Reuven Feuerstein died in 2014, and his son Dr. Rabbi Refael (Rafi) Feuerstein took over the baton as institute president. He expanded the reach of his father’s ideas and approaches to over 50 countries, such as Bhutan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Guatemala, Paraguay, Malaysia, and Iran. Refael was invited by the king of Bhutan to visit him in his palace.
Reuven Feuerstein was awarded the Israel Prize, as well as many other awards, which are displayed in what was his office on Jerusalem’s Rehov Narkiss in the institute he opened in 1992.
Refael now sits in his father’s chair, looking at the portraits, diplomas, and awards with pride.
Reuven Feuerstein’s ideas were initially scoffed at by some professionals in the field. “He was a genius, outside of the mainstream. They thought he was strange – but gradually, he became accepted, recognized, and admired for his work in developing the theories and applied systems of structural cognitive modifiability, the mediated learning experience, instrumental enrichment programs, and shaping and modifying environments,” Refael explained.
Today, these techniques provide educators with skills, tools, and systems for the improvement of cognitive development in children with Down syndrome and autism, as well as assist people of all ages suffering from psychotrauma.
Born in Romania in 1921, Reuven Feuerstein attended university there; but before he was able to obtain his degree in psychology, he had to flee the Nazi invasion. After reaching Mandate Palestine in 1945, he taught distressed child Holocaust survivors with educational and psychological issues. He went on to study at the University of Geneva under renowned psychologist Jean Piaget, earning a doctoral degree in developmental psychology at the University of Sorbonne. As director of psychological services at Youth Aliya in Europe, assessing children due to move to Israel, Reuven discovered that various students whose test scores had been inadequate improved their results significantly when he worked with them. He became convinced that due to brain malleability, they had good learning potential.
Feuerstein: The next generation
His son Refael earned degrees in psychology and philosophy from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a PhD from Paris Descartes University. Refael and his cognitive therapist wife, Tal, have eight children and five grandchildren. One of their sons, Elhanan, was diagnosed with Down syndrome in 1989 – an event that focused Refael’s interests in helping such children at the institute.
Cognitive intervention program
Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment (FIE) is a process-oriented cognitive intervention program consisting of specially designed instruments, or tools, that may be utilized in a classroom, group, or individual setting.
The institute focuses on helping children solve problems by developing their ability to understand and elaborate information. This corrects deficiencies in fundamental thinking skills and provides students with the concepts, skills, strategies, operations, and techniques necessary to function as independent learners.
The Feuerstein Method addresses the brain’s plasticity and everyone’s ability to improve their cognitive ability and intelligence – not only children with Down syndrome or those diagnosed on the autism spectrum. The method also improves math, reading, and thinking skills in “different” students who are integrated into the various schools. The counselors also assist adults with acquired head injuries and PTSD, as well as congenital head injuries.
“The institute began with 39 trained employees; now we have 300,” Refael Feuerstein told In Jerusalem.
“Our Jerusalem headquarters runs kindergartens for toddlers with autism and Down syndrome. Some children who were considered unteachable were eventually accepted at mainstream schools and have become good students.”
War trauma
Due to the trauma suffered by residents near Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, the institute opened a branch in Sderot to work with children and adults suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Rafael Feuerstein explained that there weren’t enough counselors in Sderot, so they had to be brought there from Jerusalem. “But the need is great, and there is no Feuerstein Institute representation in [nearby] Netivot [15 minutes from Sderot]. The country’s periphery, especially the Negev, is not the government’s highest priority.”
Feuerstein said he has approached the mayor of Netivot, Yehiel Zohar.
“We are in 80 countries around the world but are not in the growing Negev city of Netivot, which Hamas terrorists had originally planned to attack on Oct. 7 but couldn’t find it and instead ‘settled’ for viciously murdering young people at the Supernova music festival.
“It costs us $250,000 just to launch a branch. It’s shameful. We need the municipality’s help to do it,” Feuerstein said. “The teaching center in Sderot has treated at least 1,000 civilians with post-trauma.
“There are 400 Israelis of all ages with post-trauma in the area near Gaza. The children who live there haven’t been able to concentrate because they constantly hear the fighting across the border; but after working with them for just a few months, there is much improvement,” he stated.
Empowerment and control
The Feuerstein Method involves empowering people to take back control of their lives, make plans, and organize their time. It helps them emotionally and cognitively and improves their ability to communicate.
“We encourage them to think, and we teach them to understand what’s happening to them,” Feuerstein said. Some fight with family members or don’t eat properly. Some adults stay at home all the time, and if they hear noises they take their cars and [make a] run [for it]. People saw friends murdered in front of them or terrorists running through their gardens.
“We are ‘bridges over troubled waters’ and help them to control their memories. We are different from other therapists in that we treat the future to restore their functioning.”
Interdisciplinary teams
The institute brings together interdisciplinary teams of communications specialists, psychologists, occupational therapists, social workers, and more to work with each individual suffering from PTSD.
“We found that working with groups was not so effective,” Feuerstein said. “We teach them how to speak to their partner and children, to avoid yelling.
“We give them the goal of finding their significance, [fulfilling] their dreams, and something to look forward to. Someone who likes cars can be encouraged to work in an automobile repair shop. If someone had planned to study law before the war, we can encourage him or her to pursue that dream. If we don’t succeed in getting them where they want to go, we admit: ‘It’s not you. It’s us. Maybe we can find another place that will help you more.’”
PTSD, a state but not a trait
Working with the Defense Ministry’s rehabilitation division, the National Insurance Institute (NII), and the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry, the Feuerstein Institute has opened a center for cognitive rehabilitation and post-trauma assistance in Rishon Lezion. Civilians and soldiers suffering from PTSD or cognitive impairment resulting from head injuries are getting help.
“PTSD is not forever,” Feuerstein insisted. “It’s a state but not a trait. The institute treats such people three times a week for up to five years. This is much longer than the resilience centers established by the government near Gaza. We offer not only psychotherapy but also rehabilitation – to bring them back to life.”
There are online courses for parents and training courses for 4,000 people annually who get continuous medical education credits and a diploma. The institute has also formed a connection with the Walder Institute in Chicago, which is transforming Torah education in American schools and will hold a seminar in July, introducing Feuerstein’s techniques.
A paradigm, not just an institute
The Feuerstein Institute is slated to sign an agreement to train high school students in Paraguay and instruct teachers and others.
Meanwhile, the Rothschild Foundation and the Jewish Federation of New York are financing a Feuerstein Institute program teaching Ethiopian Jewish immigrants in Israel, who were unable to pass standard psychometric tests but did well in other tests measuring learning potential. The aim is to assist them in becoming engineers, pharmacists, and physicians.
“We are a paradigm that has an institute, not just an institute,” Feuerstein concluded.
As a Holocaust survivor, Prof. Reuven Feuerstein would have been shocked to learn what happened in Israel on Oct. 7. However, he would undoubtedly have been proud that his son and the institute he himself established are successfully working to rehabilitate those who are suffering.
A different way to learn, understand, and function
The Feuerstein Method developed by Prof. Reuven Feuerstein helps children and adults achieve their potential by teaching them how to learn. Feuerstein viewed people as open systems who are modifiable through active mediation.
His method is a process-oriented approach that identifies and analyzes learning challenges, resolving them through systematic intervention. This is done through a process called mediated learning experience (MLE), which utilizes Feuerstein’s learning propensity assessment device (LPAD) and a cognitive intervention program called Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment (FEI).
Unlike conventional techniques, the Feuerstein Method can be adapted across content areas and social settings.
It teaches its participants to think, learn, and function better. The mediator guides individuals through the processes of approaching problems, being flexible, and adapting to different situations. The method identifies individuals’ learning profiles, learning potential, and the specific cognitive processes necessary to maximize each one’s potential.
Although Prof. Feuerstein created his method 60 years ago, it has stood the test of time, improving the lives of children with Down syndrome, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autism – and, more recently, of adults suffering from psychotrauma.
Focusing on various mental skills, it provides a structured approach to problem-solving and helps participants to visualize themselves in the future.
Feuerstein believed that teachers should facilitate the learning process by guiding and supporting students in their cognitive development. Mediated learning usually involves asking questions instead of providing answers to a learner. The mediator uses a variety of tools, such as pencil-and-paper tasks and touching objects, to encourage thinking; asking participants about the meaning of a lesson, activity, series of pencil-and-paper tasks, or the organization of dots, for example. This encourages categorization and comparison-drawing that can be mediated in a classroom, group, or individual setting.
Each series in the method focuses on a different cognitive skill, creating systematic, persistent, and structured conditions to engage learners in problem-solving by developing their abilities to understand and elaborate information by asking “Why?” and “How?”
Refael Feuerstein – a founder of Tzohar
A former rabbi of the National Religious synagogue in Jerusalem’s largely ultra-Orthodox Har Nof neighborhood, Refael Feuerstein, the son of Reuven, is one of the founders of the Tzohar Rabbinical Organization, intending to establish a shared Jewish identity for the broader Israeli community. Established three decades ago in the wake of the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Tzohar was born out of a reaction to deep divisions within Israeli society, based upon differing perspectives on religious practice and identity.
These divisions have often led to outright animosity, and as such, many non-Orthodox Jews feel alienated within the very country that was founded to be the home for all Jews. Tzohar’s founders want to reverse this course and, in the service of that aim, created an organization that shapes the Jewish character of Israel through dialogue and common elements of Jewish identity. Tzohar provides its services in a welcoming and non-coercive manner, while respecting each individual’s life choices. This melds well with Refael’s aims at The Feuerstein Institute.
