Auteur: Rachel Rosen

Rachel Rosen was trained at the International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential in Jerusalem, in the Instrumental Enrichment Program and the Mediated Learning Experience as developed by the director and founder Professor Reuven Feuerstein (of blessed memory).  Over the 20 years that Mrs. Rosen worked at the Institute, she helped many individuals overcome cognitive obstacles to reach their ever expanding potential.  In 2007, Mrs. Rosen returned to the United States to help her Traumatic Brain Injured grandchild while she continued to help special needs children at a small private school in Brooklyn.  In one instance, Mrs. Rosen was asked to intervene to help a 9 year old student who was unsuccessful in grasping the concept of categories despite the efforts of teachers and specialists.  Through Mrs. Rosen’s creative modifications of the Enrichment Instrument of “Categorization" to the needs of the child, and her perceptive analysis of feedback during the mediated learning experience, Mrs. Rosen successfully enabled this child to overcome her difficulty and also brought an undetected hearing problem to the attention of her supervisor.  On further investigation, there was indeed found a need to surgically remove a bone blocking the child’s eardrum, impeding her ability to hear properly.  After surgery, the child’s responses improved so dramatically that she was able to be integrated into a normal school setting!   The belief that one’s IQ is static and not expandable is proven false by another instance of Mrs. Rosen’s work, this time with a 10 year old boy presenting with an IQ of 50, whose parents wanted him to be accepted into a small private school program whose criteria for acceptance was an IQ of at least 86.  Mrs. Rosen worked with him for 6 months using her creative and dynamic mediation through an Instrumental Enrichment instrument and teaching basic math and reading comprehension.  At the end of this period the child was reevaluated. The director of the program commented that this was a different child and he was accepted into the program.  While the child’s “new” IQ score was not told to Mrs. Rosen, it had to be at least 86!  Furthermore, the child acclimated well to the program and was able to keep up with the class independently without further assistance!  Mrs. Rosen has had many other fascinating experiences helping individuals overcome cognitive barriers.  In the future, she would like to compile a book of her experiences to share with others who could benefit from reading about actual examples of mediated learning experience interactions and how it impacts the learner.  Mrs. Rosen can be reached at her e-mail address: [email protected]