Promoting emergent literacy skills among children at risk for specific learning disorder: general vs. Specific vs. Combined metacognitive interventions

First graders with Developmental Language Disorder are considered at risk for exhibiting Specific Learning Disorder during school years. They also have deficiencies in their metacognitive skills, which leads to less effective learning processes. The current study examined, for the first time, the added value of various types of metacognitive interventions prior to an activity with an e-book for promoting language and literacy skills. Three experimental groups, each comprised of 30 first graders at risk for Specific Learning Disorder, were provided metacognitive intervention (specific, general, or combined) prior to an individual learning process with an e-book. The metacognitive interventions were designed according to the Triple A Model. Two control groups were also assigned: one control group engaged with an e-book without receiving any prior metacognitive intervention, and another followed its regular school activities. All groups were measured pre- and post-individual learning processes for language (vocabulary) and literacy (story comprehension) achievements. Results demonstrated an advantage to prior specific metacognitive intervention for promoting vocabulary as well as story comprehension measures. Although children at risk for Specific Learning Disorder tend to exhibit difficulties with generalisation processes, the combined metacognitive intervention proved to be as effective as the specific one.