Estimating personal performance: a problem for children with school dysfunction

Children with school dysfunction typically do limited planning and fail to use potentially beneficial mediational strategies on cognitive tasks. This study tested the hypothesis that these children are poor at assessing their own performance capabilities, a deficit which might contribute to this passive learning style. Thirty children, 9-12 years old, attending a multidisciplinary clinic in a pediatric setting for school underachievement, and 30 age, grade, and socioeconomic status (SES)-matched controls were asked to predict their performance in four domains of function before they were given the opportunity to perform the tasks. Clinic subjects overestimated their performance to a greater degree than controls in two domains. This performance resembles the performance of younger children on related tasks and may be amenable to therapeutic or educational intervention.