Metacognition and High Intellectual Ability: Insights from the Study of Learning-Disabled Gifted Students

Abstract

This study offers empirical support for the importance of metacognition in giftedness based on the performance of 48 school-identified learning-disabled gifted, gifted, leaming-disabled, and average-performing boys in Grades 5/6 and 11/12 on assessments of metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive skill on a think-aloud error-detection reading task, error detection, and comprehension; prior knowledge was covaried. Performance of gifted and learning-disabled gifted students exceeded that of the average-performing and learning-disabled students on most measures at both grade levels. A main effect was found for grade; however, secondary average-performing students' performance was closer to that of the gifted and leaming-disabled gifted students' performance. Metacognitive performance of the learning-disabled gifted students resembled that of the gifted sample more than that of the leaming-disabled sample.