Comparison of learning disability subtypes on independent and concurrent measures of metamemory.

The current study examined the metamemorial functioning of students with different subtypes of learning disabilities. The performance of normally achieving students, students with arithmetic difficulties, students with reading difficulties, and students with both arithmetic and reading difficulties was compared on both a general measure of metamemory, as well as on in vivo tasks designed to assess strategy acquisition and application, memory monitoring, and strategy transfer. It was expected that students with arithmetic difficulties would perform less successfully on each of these tasks than would students with reading difficulties. Normally achieving students were expected to be most successful, while students with difficulties in both arithmetic and reading were expected to have the greatest difficulty with these tasks. Analyses of group performance revealed that normally achieving students demonstrated significantly greater metamemorial knowledge, generated more precise and adequate elaborations and recalled more sentences using the elaborative interrogation strategy than did all three groups of students with learning disabilities. Although students with both arithmetic and reading difficulties consistently performed most poorly, expected differences between students with arithmetic difficulties and students with reading difficulties were not observed. Analyses designed to investigate the relative impact of both arithmetic difficulties and reading difficulties revealed that on both independent and concurrent measures of metamemory, although both arithmetic and reading difficulties were associated with poorer performance, there were no interactions between these factors. With respect to memory monitoring and strategy transfer, it was observed that iv students with arithmetic difficulties (i.e., students with arithmetic difficulties and students with difficulties in both arithmetic and reading) were less likely to select the strategy that had been most effective for them during instruction and practice during subsequent strategy choice opportunities. These results were interpreted in the context of Rourke\u27s (1982; 1987; 1989; 1995) model of neuropsychological functioning for students with both verbal and nonverbal learning disabilities.Dept. of Psychology. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1998 .G74. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 61-09, Section: B, page: 5027. Adviser: Sylvia Voelker. Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1998