Professor Reuven Feuerstein

Reuven Feuerstein was born in Romania on August 21, 1921. At an early age, his ability to help people with learning difficulties was evident as he worked with a young man in his native village and found more success in that effort than anyone would have predicted. This experience, as well as his profound religious faith, moved Reuven to embody a fundamental optimism about the potential of every human being to become better thinkers and learners.

After the Nazi invasion of his home country, Reuven was able to escape and pursue professional studies with some of the greatest minds of the 20th century. During his time of study, he continued to question every belief and assumption that would give someone a reason to give up on the learning capabilities of children. He tirelessly pursued answers to the learning needs of children which defied conventional wisdom and practice. By 1948 Reuven had moved to the new state of Israel and worked directly with child survivors of the Holocaust. Recognizing the learning difficulties that the years of oppression and hardship had brought to these children, he devoted all of his energies to both understand their plight and find ways to help them.

During many years of practice and direct interactions with students, he developed his theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability and the Mediated Learning Experience. He demonstrated over and over again that the cognitive ability of students could be radically improved through the intervention of the skilled mediator. Thus it could no longer be acceptable for educators to believe that intelligence is “fixed” and that nothing can be done to improve its functioning. He developed practical applications to his theory, both in terms of assessment and in terms of intervention. The assessment technique is known as the Learning Propensity Assessment Device (LPAD), and the intervention program is known as the Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment Program (FIE). The FIE Program has a Standard version for school grades of four and up through all stages of adulthood and a Basic version for preschool and the first three grades of schooling.

Feuerstein’s programs have been used extensively throughout the world since the 1950s and have been especially powerful for the educational challenges of special needs children; for cognitive rehabilitation of brain injured individuals; for learning enhancement programs for immigrant and cultural minority students; for enrichment programs for underachieving, regular, and gifted children; and for professional training and retraining programs for business, industry, and the military.

Reuven Feuerstein is the Founder and Director of the International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential (ICELP) in Jerusalem, Israel. The Center has recently been renamed The Feuerstein Institute. His theories and applied systems are being used in more than eighty countries from North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.