Metamemory and metalinguistic development: Correlates of children’s intelligence and achievement

Abstract

The interrelationships between metamemory and metalinguistic development and their association with verbal intelligence and academic achievements were examined for 80 children in first and third grades. At both grade levels, metamemory correlated significantly with meta· linguistic development. The moderate strength of the association was to be expected from a con· trast of the two distinct theoretical constructs that are only indirectly linked within the more general concept of metacognition. For children of both ages, relationships between meta· memory and metalinguistic level and those between a combined index of metacognition and achievement did not remain significant when the effects due to verbal intelligence were par· tialed out. The association between the combined index and a metareading assessment was significant for first·grade children, independent of verbal intelligence.Metacognition refers to self-knowledge about cognitive processes and structures (Flavell, 1979). Two important components of metacognition are metamemory (knowledge about memory processes) and metalinguistic awareness (knowledge about language features and functions). Although each component has its unique theoretical importance in theories of memory (Borkowski, in press) and language (Downing, 1979; Ryan & Ledger, in press), their conceptual and empirical links are tenuous. Yet, each is a specialized form of knowledge that may be important in explaining how children learn to function in a cognitively sophisticated manner in their environments. This article outlines empirical contact points between metamemory and metalinguistic development and their association with general intelligence and achievement. Kurtz, Reid, Borkowski, and Cavanaugh (1982) developed a six-item metamemory battery, assessed its reliability, and demonstrated its validity by showing its relationship with the transfer of an acquired elaborative strategy. Similarly, Ryan and Ledger (1982) showed that metalinguistic knowledge of phonological and syntactic features and of the functions of reading correlate with early reading and sentence-memory performance. In the present study, 80 fIrst-and third· grade children were given metamemory and metalinguistic batteries and the WISC·R Vocabulary subtest, a

Where gifted children do and do not excel on metacognitive tasks∗

“…A lthough it seems that IQ and overall level of metacognitive knowledge are correlated, the relationship between gifted children's metacognitive knowledge and IQ is mixed -one study showing a significant relationship (Borkowski et al, 1983), and two studies (Carr & Borkowski, 1987;Swanson, 1992) showing no relationship. Thus, when comparing average to gifted children, a strong case can be made that gifted children possess more specific strategy knowledge than average IQ children.…”

Explicit versus Implicit Instruction: Which Is Preferable for Learning an Artificial Morphological Rule in Children?

“…Moreover, on average, the 8-year-olds trained with the explicit instruction were also slower in responding to the judgment task when the AMR was applied to repeated items as compared to their peers trained in an implicit condition. This slowness can be ascribed to two different mechanisms, assuming that one or both of them are still immature in 8-year-olds: first, the immaturity of implicit learning, and second, an immaturity in applying explicit knowledge in the context of a metalinguistic task such as the judgment task (but not in the context of the more ‘natural' production task) [76,77]. …”

“How do I remember when I got my dog?” The structure and development of children’s metamemory

“…The distinction made between declarative and procedural components (e.g., Flavell and Wellman 1977;Schneider 1999) implies that they involve different underlying processes and capacities, and thus it is likely that they do not both develop in a perfectly parallel fashion. With regard to the development of strategy knowledge, there is evidence that declarative knowledge is facilitated by developmental progression in language ability (Borkowski et al 1983;Lockl and Schneider 2007), as well as reasoning ability and impulsivity (Schneider et al 1987). Declarative metamemory has also been shown to develop in a domain-general fashion (Schwanenflugel et al 1997), with very little relationship with domain-specific expertise or performance (Schneider et al 1990).…”