Questions & Answers

“Cognitive” merely refers to what one remembers and remembering is a skill facilitated by learning the cognitive skills such as visual, spatial and auditory processing (what is important to take in or attend to) and memory, attention, logic, reasoning, etc. that the brain must become skilled in being able to do. Skills are learned through practice until they become a natural part of the way one lives or does things in his life.

Who doesn’t need to improve memory?  The more one can hold into his or her short term memory, the easier it is to solve challenging situations, to do everyday tasks with precision and with efficiency, and to have a “bank” of information to solve a problem or complete a task. A working memory, however, requires the skills that only a well-trained brain can utilize and learning skills requires practice and continual usage. It requires the ability to perceive accurately, process and store that information within oneself,  and then utilize it the information. Developing cognitive skills are related to disciplining the mind. Ruth Beecheck, a Christian psychologist who worked with home school parents, suggests that wisdom is based on the ability to discipline oneself – in other words, self-discipline is taught, not caught. This kind of self-discipline, in turn, is developed by parents (mediators) disciplining their children with love, instruction in what is right and wrong. Cognitive development is a way to train students to discipline their minds to think and then their behaviors to become a result of the disciplined thinking. Today’s problem solving skills are situated around experience and one’s own constructed knowledge – therefore, it is not situated in sound knowledge coupled with a disciplined mind.

If so, do you consider information process theory compatible with (or at least not contradicting to) biblical training? If yes, in what way?  The theoretical foundation is that we do process information but it is not done automatically, that is, without someone teaching us. We are originally marred, but we then have teachers (parents, etc.) that do not mediate our learning but expect us to construct our own knowledge – no wonder there is no truth today!

Furthermore, one cannot manage information unless the brain has particular skills to know what to do with that information.

Cognitive psychology. “Labeling” is criteria that fits Special Needs descriptors (Psychology). The beauty of this program is that the founders do not believe in labeling. . . . the only thing labeling does is put kids in a box unable to get out of it – we believe these “deficiencies” can be corrected without medications (which is merely a band-aide).

It does correct these two areas – most kids with learning disabilities and/or adults who have been traumatized have a problem with working and long-term memory. This is pictures in the center of that diagram – what goes on in the head (if anything at all “goes on”), is just short term or is learned from the learner’s perspective, thus wiring his brain wrong.

Feuerstein and Brown consider that deficiencies are due to 1 of 3 things – either you aren’t perceiving what you see or hear (the stimulus) correctly, you have a physiological issue in the brain (whether genetic, due to brain injury, faulty wiring – wrong wiring), or you can’t communicate and apply what is in the brain. . . the 3 parts of the diagram.

The best way for me to explain this is through my son Troy. He could not remember nouns (the names of things), follow directions, or put together words when he sounded them out. His issues were that the brain was not working correctly so as a human mediator, as his human mediator, I taught him nouns in particular categories (like fruit, farm animals, etc.). I had him repeat the directions I gave him starting with giving him one direction at a time and then adding the number of instructions for him to repeat. We never did get the phonics situation solved – he still can’t spell using phonics – but I think if I’d have had this program, he would have overcome this problem also.

This is what the program is about – overcoming the issues. There are no limitation to using EMC – the limitations are due to the human mediator’s contribution and time restraints. . . in other words, the learner can reestablish healthy pathways in the brain eliminating the deficiencies with the proper mediation, time (some may take a day to start processing properly and some may take a year), and consistent practice.

The at-risk community refers to learners with learning disabilities and is measured by the “norm” set in place by the educational community. I believe EVERYONE has a learning disability – they just aren’t labeled. This program doesn’t believe there are “norms” (as Piaget did – we are all fearfully and wonderfully made) but the founders believe what is normal for one child may not fit the next one. ACTUALLY, this is the problem with Christianity and where pragmatism has taken over. If I read a book that someone else wrote on how to have a happy marriage and follow the steps she went through, it may or may not work because we are individuals and live in different situations. . . the main thing is sticking to concepts that fit everyone, at all times, in all circumstances, and in all places (the WORD). Furthermore, why do you think there are so many books out on how to disciple teens or adults – and they are all different? Because (1) the situations are different, and (2) the principles are not from the Bible but list what worked in their circumstance.

Feuerstein is an Orthodox Jew who does not believe in behavioral sciences but does believe God created the brain (mind) to remember what it needs to in order to be a whole person. He was a student of Piaget but disagreed with his stages of development, mostly because it boxed kids into stages, making them failures (due, accordingly, to their mental deficiencies). The key to Feuerstein’s model is human mediation. Without it, whatever the child learns is relative and there is no truth. Experience needs someone to explain it – it is not the content but without a mediator (human), it becomes the “content”. I’ll answer tomorrow but am attaching some drafts of things I’m working on!

If we think of psychology as care of the soul (the original meaning) and realize that cognitions are merely what we remember (long term memory) and put into practice or use what you know (working memory), it is valid.

The word remember (Hebrew: Zakar) is used 233 times in the OT – it means remember (172x), mention (21x), remembrance (10x), recorder (9x), mindful (6x),think (3x), bring to remembrance (2x), record (2x), miscellaneous (8x).  This is what cognitions are – remembering!

In the NT it is translated from several words:

  1. mnēmoneuōto exercise memory, i.e. recollect; by implication, to punish; also to rehearse:—make mention; be mindful, remember. (23X but used in a variety of other tenses with same meaning.
  2. anamimnēskō  call to remembrance (2x), call to mind (1x), bring to remembrance (1x), remember (1x), put to remembrance (1x).

The word cognition comes from ginosko (greek) which means: 1580s, “pertaining to cognition,” with -ive + Latin cognit-, past participle stem of cognoscere “to get to know, recognize,” from assimilated form of com “together” (see co-) + gnoscere “to know,” from PIE root *gno- “to know.” and is used 225 times in the NT.

So cognitions – knowing – must be important to God.

This is the same nature-nurture argument that has been going on forever . . . human mediation refers to nurture. You are not born with your inner thoughts (although you are born with a sin nature that affects your thought); they are shaped by what you learn (and that should mostly be from God but He called parents, teachers, pastors, and others to “teach so that the human mediation leads them to be Christ followers). Inner thoughts are cognitions – they are not there before the learner starts using his senses to observe the world around him. Without a mediator, those inner thoughts are not based on solid ground.