There is controversy within the research literature concerning the relative prevalence of reading problems in boys and girls. The authors report findings from very large and very representative samples of Australian students. Data from the New South Wales "Basic Skills Test" (BST) for reading, administered annually to third and fifth…

This study investigated the extent to which children's knowledge about reading disabilities, preoccupation with their own reading disability, and anxiety predicted reading comprehension in fifth and sixth grade children with reading disabilities (N = 85). Participants provided rich and accurate information about reading disabilities and the…

Whether boys are more vulnerable than girls to reading disabilities (RD) is controversial. We review studies that were designed to minimize ascertainment bias in the selection of individuals with RD. These include population-based studies that identified children with RD by objective, unbiased methods and studies that examined the gender ratios…

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 27 children (14 girls, 13 boys) who varied in their reading skill levels. Both behavior performance measures recorded during the ERP word classification task and the ERP responses themselves discriminated between children with above-average, average, and below-average reading skills. ERP…