Abstract

This research investigated the development of referential communication in children with Learning Disability (LD), the strategy used and the presence of a possible metacognitive deficit. The research was conducted with 14 children with LD compared and matched with 14 normal children selected from a larger sample of 80 children. It was used a Communication Referential standardized task and a Metacommunication task. It was also conducted a qualitative analysis to analyse the strategy used by LD children. The results show a delay on the development of oral comprehension and the use of atypical strategies in LD children. This result is analysed in relation to the hypothesis of a more general metacognitive deficit in LD children.