PEDIATRICS Vol. 94 No. 4 October 1994, pp. 549
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THE PREVALENCE OF GENDER-ATYPICAL BEHAVIOR IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN

David E. Sandberg PhD, Heino F.L. Meyer-Bahlburg , Rer. Nat. , Anke A. Ehrhardt PhD, and Thomas J. Yager PhD

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 a 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.

Key Words: gender role behavior • gender identity disorder • prevalence • community survey