GIFTED, LD, AND GIFTED LD CHILDREN UNDERSTANDING OF TEMPORAL SEQUENCING ON TELEVISION/

The investigation reported here reinforces the conceptualization of te levision viewing as a learned activity by highlighting the interrelate dness of children's linguistic, cognitive, and perceptual skills for a ccurate comprehension of television's most basic narrative device - te mporal sequencing. It also explores the likely impact of highly diverg ent skills and abilities on children's capacity to comprehend televisi on information by sampling children school-labeled as intellectually g ifted, learning disabled, and gifted/LD. Findings reveal that gifted a nd gifted/LD children demonstrated a higher level of comprehension of the basic realistic mode of presentation than nonlabeled and learning disabled children. Nonlabeled, gifted, and gifted/LD children who wher e high consumers of television were also better able to comprehend the more sophisticated ''lime-leap'' mode of presentation than low and mo derate consumers. Regardless of their level of television consumption, learning disabled children could not accurately follow the more sophi sticated presentation of temporal sequencing.