Learning potential and rigidity in the adolescent mentally retarded.

Performance of educable mentally retarded (EMR) adolescents after coaching on a nonverbal reasoning task varies considerably. 5s whose scores improved markedly on the reasoning task (gainers) cannot be distinguished from those who did not benefit from the coaching experience (nongainers), when traditional IQ and school-history criteria are examined. Gainer EMRs demonstrated less rigidity than nongainers on a simple repetitive task, tending to satiate more frequently. Gainers also tended to shift concepts more readily than nongainers and MA controls. CA controls were least rigid on both tasks. Gainers' performance paralleled this group. A history of social deprivation was associated with prolonged performance on the simple repetitive tasks but not on the concept-shift problem.