Reading problems and antisocial behaviour: developmental trends in comorbidity

Abstract

Samples of poor and normal readers were followed through adolescence and into early adulthood to assess continuities in the comorbidity between reading difficulties and disruptive behaviour problems. Reading-disabled boys showed high rates of inattentiveness in middle childhood, but no excess of teacher-rated behaviour problems at age 14 and no elevated rates of aggression, antisocial personality disorder or officially recorded offending in early adulthood. Increased risks of juvenile offending among specifically retarded-reading boys seemed associated with poor school attendance, rather than reading difficulties per se. Reading problems were associated with some increases in disruptive behaviour in their teens in girls.