Ah! teacher training. They taught me then that cognition was about the aquisition of knowledge through sensory perception, and therefore of itself 'cognition' would describe the use of all the available senses appropriate for the task in hand. I think Meta-cognition is a posh way of saying "lots of sensory input"--sounds brilliant, but I'm really not sure it means much, and I still question whether language, as such, is necessary for reasoned choice to take place. Language must always include communication, but communication does not need language to suceed in conveying its message. Then there are the people who do not communicate in any way and have no language ..but they can still make choices. The aquisition of language and its use in communication are things that we take for granted and we really shouldn't.

PS I am using the term language as I think the reseacher does ie written or spoken words.