Metacognitive Problems in Persons with Learning Disability

1. Cognitive, Metacognitive and Motivational Problems Marianne Ricamonte ArcelleTadena

2. Cognition – it refers to our ability to think Metacognition – refers to our ability to think about thinking. Attention – it refers to our ability to concentrate Definition of Terms

4. “Humans do not passively register the world as it really is; they filter, transform, and construct the experiences which constitute their “reality” (Mahoney, 1974) Brief History

5. Behaviorism Cognitive

7. Field Dependent vs. Field Independent this concept refers to how much individuals are influenced by their environment when ask to make decisions on perpetual tasks. Different Cognitive Styles:

8. Field Dependent – Persons who are heavily influenced by their environment. Their perceptions are less accurate because they can be “thrown off” by misleading information in their surroundings. Field Independent - individuals who are able to focus on the most essential perpetual data w/out being influenced by inessential details.

9. Daniels (1996) summarizes the general tendencies of field dependent and independent learners asfollows: Field Dependent: • Rely on the surrounding perceptual field. • Have difficulty attending to, extracting, and using non salient cues. • Have difficulty providing structure to ambiguous information. • Have difficulty restructuring new information and forging links with prior knowledge. • Have difficulty retrieving information from long-term memory. Field Independent: • Perceive objects as separate from the field. • Can dissembled relevant items from non-relevant items within the field. • Provide structure when it is not inherent in the presented information. • Reorganize information to provide a context for prior knowledge. • Tend to be more efficient at retrieving items from memory

10. Researchers have found that children become more field independent with age.(Witkin, Goodenough, & Karp, 1967). However, children who have learning disabilities are generally more field dependent than their nondisabled peers (Blackman & Goldstein, 1982). Reflectivity vs. Impulsivity refers to whether a person takes time to reflect on various alternative before making a choice on difficult but solvable tasks. Reflective learners -tend to make a slower, more calculated decision. They are usually more systematic and more cautious in learning.

11. Impulsive learners - tend to make a quick or gambling guess at an answer to a problem. They are usually more intuitive and more willing to take risks in learning. It is also important to note that impulsivity, as a cognitive style is not the same as having an impulsive personality (Sternberger &Grigorenko, 1997). The Matching Familiar Figures Test is used to measure the bipolar trait of reflection-impulsivity. The original children's version of the MFFT contains two practice and 12 experimental items. Each item consists of a standard picture of a common object and six variants, one identical to the standard and five slightly different in one detail each. The subject is to choose the variant that matches the standard, with five incorrect choices allowed per problem. The responses are timed. The instrument is projective, which can be self-administered.

12. Researchers found that those children who respond more slowly and make fewer errors were reflective, whereas impulsive children respond quickly but make many errors. Also, researchers have generally found the reflectivity-impulsivity dimension to developmentally sensitive, with children becoming more reflective with age. In addition, children with learning disabilities are more apt to be impulsive than regular children (Blackman & Goldstein, 1982).

13. Memory -the function involved reliving past experiences -totality of past experiences which can be remembered. Types of memory: Short –term memory – the ability to remember information over a relatively short period of time – a few seconds or a minute or so at most. This can vary in many ways, example: In a auditory short-term memory task, the individual hears several trials of five to seven digits . After each trial, the individual is to repeat back the sequence in correct order. Working Memory – refers to a person’s ability to keep a small amount of information in mind while simultaneously carrying out further operations.

14. Research shows that those students with LD who performed well on short-term and especially in working memory tasks also performed well on reading and mathematics problem among other student with LD. Memory Strategies: Rehearsal - is the repetition of the names of the to-be-remembered things. Organization – or clustering things to be remembered while rehearsing them. e.g. Fruits ; Animals etc.

16. Knowing how much study time will be needed (eg. knowing how to schedule homework) Knowing when a study strategy will be needed (eg. knowing when to hire a tutor) Knowing when memory aids will be needed (eg. knowing when to write down directions) Knowing which part of a task will need to be rehearsed (eg. knowing that you should drill the names of the Australian Prime Ministers for a history test) (Source: Farnham-Diggory, 1992, p 81)

17. The metacognitive process can be thought of as a form of Self-Regulation: These consist of several elements : Awareness of viable strategies. Selection of an appropriate strategy. Monitoring of the use of the strategy. Possible adjustment or revision towards strategy. (Borkowski, 1992) Researchers have found that students with learning disabilities are deficient in a variety of metacognitive areas such as: Metamemory Metalistening Metacomprehension in Reading

18. Metamemory – the ability to think about memory strategies. Questions like this tests metamemory skills: If you wanted to phone a friend, and someone told you the phone number, would it make any difference if you called right away after you heard the number or if you got a drink of water first? Why? What would you do if you wanted to try to remember a phone number?

19. Metalistening – the ability to conceptualize the listening process. In a study for metalistening – children were told they would play a game that involved several rules. An adult presented one rule at a time, asking the children after each rule presentation if they thought they now had enough info to play the game. -The result was that children w/ LD were found to be much more likely than the regular peers to voice a readiness to play even though by objective standards they have not yet heard enough info to play the game appropriately.

20. THANK YOU.