This study examined the differences between learning disabled boys and girls on causal attribution patterns in hypothetical academic success and failure situations. The 376 boys and 177 girls were given the Survey of Achievement Responsibility (SOAR). The learning disabled girls had higher effort and luck attributions in success situations than did boys and higher ability attributions for failure situations. This pattern is characteristic of learned helplessness and often is observed in normally achieving girls in math/science content areas. Unlike normally achieving girls, the learning disabled girls did not exhibit a more mastery-oriented pattern in language arts.
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