READING PROBLEMS AND ANTISOCIAL-BEHAVIOR - DEVELOPMENTAL-TRENDS IN COMORBIDITY

Samples of poor and normal readers were followed through adolescence a nd into early adulthood to assess continuities in the comorbidity betw een reading difficulties and disruptive behaviour problems. Reading-di sabled boys showed high rates of inattentiveness in middle childhood, but no excess of teacher-rated behaviour problems at age 14 and no ele vated rates of aggression, antisocial personality disorder or official ly recorded offending in early adulthood. Increased risks of juvenile offending among specifically retarded-reading boys seemed associated w ith poor school attendance, rather than reading difficulties per se. R eading problems were associated with some increases in disruptive beha viour in their teens in girls. Copyright (C) 1996 Association for Chil d Psychology and Psychiatry.