Baumeister's (1968) hypothesis that mentally retarded children exhibit depressed levels of performance and greater intra-individual variability when compared to intellectually non-handicapped children of similar chronological age was investigated. Eight 10-year-old educable mentally retarded boys and 16 non-handicapped boys, matched by either mental age or chronological age, attempted 60 trials on a kicking task. Results indicated that mental age-matched boys exhibited greater variable error than did either the mentally retarded or chronological age-matched boys, while mentally retarded boys performed with greater, although not significant, error than did chronological age-matched boys. Significant correlations in early trial-blocks were found for constant error with variable error for mentally retarded and mental age-matched boys. These findings support the variability hypothesis in early task acquisition. (Author/JD)