Abstract:

This study wants to explore and examine the effects of a mediated intervention programme in a primary school. The participants were 120 students aged 8-9, attended 3rd class half of them Italian and half immigrants of first or second generation. Some of their teachers participated as mentors.

The activities consisted on the cognitive enhancement of the participants through Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment, and on an activity centred on body awareness and mediated learning experience. The Feuerstein’s Instrumental Enrichment Program (FIE) is a series of tasks that directly focus on the development of thinking skills The implementation of the instruments effectively requires a different teaching style called Mediated Learning Experience (MLE). The intention is to improve students’ social adaptability that ultimately contributes towards real- life problem solving skills. The Enrichment Program is built on the idea that intelligence is dynamic and modifiable, not static or fixed. Thus, the program seeks to sharpen critical thinking with concepts, skills, strategies, operations, and techniques necessary for independent learning. It is a tool to diagnose and correct deficiencies in thinking skills and to help students to learn how to learn.The content of the exercises is specially designed to promote independent thinking in the learner. Several studies have demostrated the effectiveness of mediation based on Feuerstein's theory of Structural Cognitive

Modifiability and Mediated Learning experience, given that there are limited studied on learners in remedial schools, the current study intented to hypothesized that participants exposed to mediation would yiel a significant improvement in cognitive functioning. In these classes there are some learners who have a wide range of barriers to learning and develpment including specific learning disorders such as for example ADHD, pervasive developmental disorders and reading and writing disorders. According to their teachers these children had difficulty in concentrating, poor study skills and work habits, lacked confidence and motivation. Hypothesis One proposed that, following the intervention, improved Q1vata scores of the participants would occur in each of the groups. Hypothesis two postulated that participants within the Mediated Learning Experience wold perform significantly better thant those Group of control. A pre-experimental research design, in particular a one-group pre-test-post-test approach was adopted. During the pre-test phase, all the participants were simultaneously exposed to Q1vata test for logical and linguistic evaluation skill. During the mediation intervention, significant improvement was demonstrated with the experimental group. This supports Feuerstein's Theory that initial poor performance was a result of a lack of mediated learning experience rather than inherent difference or deficiencies. Furthermore the use of an appropriate mediated learning enabled the partecipants to function adequately. The utility of mediated learning experience as alternative approach on cognitive and relational practice was confirmed both for special needs students and normal ones, because it is considered to make learning meaninful and personally relevant to students and helps them to became protagonist and responsible of their knowledge.

Keywords:

Mediated Learning Experience, Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment (IE), Mediation, Cultural Deprivation.