THE PREVALENCE OF GENDER-ATYPICAL BEHAVIOR IN ELEMENTARY-SCHOOL-CHILDREN

Objective: To supplement the few small-scale studies on convenience samples of boys with an epidemiological study on the prevalence of gender-atypical behaviors (GABs) in boys and girls and to assess the influence of variation of age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Method: The present study, a postal questionnaire survey, used an existing pool of GAB items for boys, developed comparable GAB items for girls, and analyzed parent-reported frequencies of GABs in a demographically heterogeneous community sample of 687 boys and girls age 6 to 10 years. Results: The majority of GABs were quite rare, but there was considerable variability in their prevalence. Nevertheless, many children show multiple GABs although each individual GAB at low frequency; for instance, 10 or more different GABs were exhibited by 22.8% of boys and 38.6% of girls. Only few GABs varied significantly with age, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. Conclusions: These data are of relevance to clinicians counseling parents who are worried about the occurrence of GABs in their children.