For the past several years, I have observed student teachers in special education helping students with learning difficulties in mathematics. These direct or videotaped observations led me to ask myself questions about the helping relationship that emerges between the child and the person helping, and on the link of dependence that seems to occur occasionally. I analyze the interventions made with children experiencing difficulties learning simple addition and subtraction problems, from the standpoint that the didactic contract seems to be influenced by more explicit objectives here than in the regular classroom. This analysis allows me to show the dependency link I referred to and its persistence, despite interventions that specifically aim at breaking it. Apart from the contract, I also give an explanation for this phenomenon, while pointing out the limits of the planned intervention. Although it provides students with a problem solving approach, it does not promote student comprehension since it is not based on analysing the task at hand, and because it does not allow the child to do cognitive work on the specific mathematical task at stake.