ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the importance of parents as primary mediators. As have seen, Mediated Learning Experience is the process by which the adult caregiver, in interaction with the child, interprets the world to the child. The mediation process, rather than the content or even the language of mediation, is seen as central to the development of cognitive processes that will later enable the child to learn more independently and directly from new stimuli. Professor Pnina Klein, a colleague of Feuerstein, has carried out a significant series of international studies on the enhancement of parental mediation using Feuerstein’s key mediation criteria. She developed a supportive checklist which forms part of her ‘Observing Mediational Intervention’ tool, a videotaped observation tool aimed at assisting parents and caregivers to self-evaluate their mediating interactions with their young children. The chapter focuses on the importance of mediation by parents and other adult caregivers, and drawn attention to the cultural embeddedness of that mediation.
