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.


METHODS
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.
Sandberg
D E
DE
Division of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Children's Hospital of Buffalo, NY 14222.
Meyer-Bahlburg
H F
HF
Ehrhardt
A A
AA
Yager
T J
TJ
D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D009515:New Jersey / Q000453:epidemiology; D010552:Personality Assessment; D011606:Psychosexual Development; D012931:Social Environment; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013240:Stereotyping