Boys were two to three times more likely than girls to be affected by reading disabilities, according to a Mayo Clinic study of 5,718 children in Rochester, Minnesota.
The study’s objective was to report the incidence of reading disability among school-aged children. Overall, the incidence of reading disability was 5.3 percent to 11.8 percent, depending on the definition used to establish it. The study’s results appeared in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
“Our study provides a powerful opportunity to learn more about reading disability,” said Slavica K. Katusic, M.D., a Mayo Clinic epidemiologist and the primary author of the study. “These data suggest that this diagnosis should be given a higher prior probability in boys than in girls.”
The majority — approximately 80 percent — of children identified as having learning disabilities have their primary academic problem in reading. The World Federation of Neurology defines reading disability as a disorder manifested by difficulty learning to read despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence, and socio-cultural opportunity.
The study’s report was from an ongoing epidemiologic study of learning disability among all children born from 1976 through 1982 in Rochester, Minnesota. An interdisciplinary team of investigators used comprehensive, medical, educational, and tutorial resources available on all 5,718 children.
