Metacognitive Processes Underlying Psychomotor Performance in Children with Differing Psychomotor Abilities

Abstract

The use of metacognition differs with different levels of cognitive ability, but it is not known whether children of different psychomotor abilities use metacognition differently. This study used a think-aloud protocol to compare the active use of metacognition in children with different psychomotor abilities—high skill, average, developmental coordination disorder (DCD)—during a ball-throwing task. Children with DCD did not verbalize fewer or different metacognitive concepts than either the average or high skill children; however, relative to their counterparts, a significant median proportion of the concepts verbalized by children with DCD were found to be inappropriate or inaccurate. These findings reflect ineffective metacognitive processing by children with DCD during a psychomotor task.