FEARS OF NORMAL AND RETARDED-CHILDREN

The developmental features of the fears of 112 nonretarded and 42 retarded children were examined. With development, the fears of nonretarded children became more closely aligned with real sources of threat that involve human agency and less fearful of imaginary things. The retarded children displayed patterns of fears similar to their mental-age peers rather than chronological peers and were more likely to deny being fearful than their nonretarded peers.