In Craig et al.'s "Performances of Young African American Children on Two Comprehension Tasks," several dozen young black children in middle-income homes were tasked to respond to questions and to determine language comprehension among the participants. Factors that were examined included distinguishing between active and passive sentence constructions, and the response to the questions asked. What/where/when/who/why questions were asked, as well as word order cues were used on the children, as they responded to prompts using their natural oral language skills and language comprehension. In essence, age was shown to be a huge factor in language comprehension, and the use of dialect was also demonstrated to be a substantial factor in the language development of African-Americans. Tasks that probe for responses to requests for information were shown to accurately gauge the language development of young black children in middle-income homes.
In Freeman et al.'s "Comprehension of Affective Prosody in Veterans with Chronic Posttraumatic Stress Disorder," a group of veterans who have chronic PTSD and other conditions in which one's emotional range is severely decreased were studied using the Aprosodia Battery. In essence, affective processing of information and comprehension was gauged through identification tasks, wherein participants were asked to replicate and imitate certain emotions (happy, sad, etc.). Afterwards, stimuli designed to elicit those emotions were also provided to the participants to see if the intonations are the same. The results of the study showed marked deficits in emotional range and comprehension of emotions in affective speech in those with PTSD. This created a correlation between the disorder and a distinct limit or maladjustment of emotional perception and comprehension.
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I believe that understanding our own language and emotional responses deal substantially with our understanding of Christian theology and scripture. Often, our ability to comprehend the world around us, particularly as it relates to language, determines our concentration and focus on certain subjects. As for the Bible, our comprehension abilities often determine what aspects of the Bible we focus on and emphasize in our daily lives. It is possible for us to not be able to understand some parts better than others, and as such place a greater emphasis on those understandable sections. Metacomprehension allows us to understand when we are not receiving a message in full, as we are aware of our confusion. This allows us to direct our research and our study further to difficult subjects that we might find hard to grasp at first.
I have had many experiences with metacomprehension as I have searched for understanding of God's word, and seen it in others. In my own studies and that of others, there have been instances in which people have come to me for help and vice versa with advice about a particular section of the Bible. Through our mutual communication and the seeking out of other perspectives, I am aware of my lack of comprehension of certain sections of the Bible (sections of Leviticus regarding homosexuality and other sins, for example), and as such want to concentrate my studies on what knowledge I am lacking. In the case of other Christians, I have also seen instances in which metacomprehension is not utilized, and people just read through a section without completely understanding its implications.
References
Craig, H. K, Washington, J. A., & Thompson-Porter, C. (1998). Performances of young African
American children on two comprehension tasks. Journal of Speech, Language, and
Hearing Research 41(2):445.
Freeman, T.W., Hart, J., Kimbrell, T., & Ross, E.D. (2009). Comprehension of affective prosody
in veterans with chronic posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and
Clinical Neurosciences 21: 52-58.
