Mildly mentally retarded and nonretarded children's learned helplessness.

The relationship among four measures identified as operational definitions of learned helplessness was assessed in 44 mildly mentally retarded and 44 nonretarded children of equivalent mental age. Assessment of perseverance, response initiation, teacher perception of helplessness, and attributions for positive and negative achievement outcomes revealed an absence of corroboration in the two subgroups. The findings suggest that ability grouping and instrumentation are meaningful variables when evaluating learned helplessness in retarded and nonretarded students.