Metacognition and Special Education: a Review of a View

Abstract

This paper presents a reasoned case on why special educators should attend to metacognitive theory and research, a new area of theoretical conceptualization and research in cognitive psychology. Both the contributions and the limitations of metacognition to special education are weighed. On the one hand, relevant research findings are marshalled to highlight the contributions of metacognition to the learning disabilities and mental retardation fields. Specifically, metacognition enables understanding of the difficulties of learning-disabled children in learning to read—difficulties that stem from deficient phonemic awareness. Metacognition also illuminates reading comprehension difficulties in learning-disabled students, and the mechanisms underlying failures in maintenance and generalization of learned strategies in educable mentally retarded and learning-disabled trainees. The constraints in applying metacognition to special education are thoroughly considered. Particularly highlighted are the limitations of an invariant interpretation of strategic deficits of exceptional students' performance failures and the neglect in including affective variables in metacognitive interventions. The end-product is a balanced view of the applicability of metacognition in learning disabilities and mental retardation, a view that promotes its proper use in special educational research and practice.