Meta-Attention in Learning Disabled and Normal Students

Abstract

Learning disabled (LD) and normal children (non-LD), matched on age and IQ level, were probed on their awareness of attentional processes. Children were required to make forced choices regarding the relative importance of distraction, reward, and interest level to the process of paying attention. Results indicated significant developmental trends for both diagnostic groups, with younger children being relatively more impressed with the effects of reward and older children placing relatively more value on interest level. No strong diagnostic effects were evidenced for the LDs and non-LDs on the meta-attentional task. However, performance on the meta-attentional task was related to academic achievement for normal but not for learning disabled children. In a second experiment, performance on the meta-attentional tasks was related to academic achievement for learning disabled children after academic intervention. Results are interpreted to suggest that learning disabled children may have deficiencies in the application of acquired metacognitive information.