Do you support a child or adult with sensory perceptual issues or cognitive impairment? For people with challenging sensory and cognitive conditions, everyday life can become so unpredictable and chaotic that over time, lack of engagement can often lead to a state of learned helplessness. In this insightful text, Paul Pagliano shows how "learned…

Learned helplessness is an insidious condition involving undeveloped executive functioning, lack of persistence, and an undeveloped sense of connecting new words or concepts into a web of meanings. Remedial teaching in most small-group, diagnostic/prescriptive settings encourages continued learned helplessness because students are dependent on the…

The application of learned helplessness theory to achievement is discussed within the context of implications for research in learning disabilities. Finally, the similarities between helpless children and learning disabled students in terms of problems solving and attention are discussed. (Author)