Previous research findings indicate that learning disabled students exhibit metacognitive deficits. Moreover, training studies suggest that instruction in strategy deployment is an effective tool in remediating LD students' academic delays. Based on these data, it was proposed that teachers of LD students might show greater sensitivity to their students' cognitive and metacognitive skills than would teachers of normal achievers. The present study addressed this issue by comparing teachers' predictions about their students' metacognitive skills, strategy use, and metacomprehension abilities with their students' actual performance on specific tasks. Teachers of LD and regular education students were included in the study. Within these two educational status groups, teachers' predictions about both older and younger students were assessed. Teachers evaluating younger LD students were less likely to overestimate their students' abilities than were teachers of younger normal achievers and were also less likely to overestimate their younger than their older LD students' abilities. Furthermore, the accuracy of the teachers of the younger regular education students was particularly low, when evaluated in terms of absolute deviation from actual performance. These findings generally supported the hypothesis that LD teachers were more sensitive to their students' metamemory skills than were the regular education teachers. However, in contrast to previous findings, results of the present study indicated that teachers were more accurate in their predictions of reading skills and metacognitive abilities than of their students' strategy use. Implications for teacher training models are discussed
