Emotional and Behavioral Problems Among School Adolescents With and Without Reading Difficulties as Measured by the Youth Self-Report: A One-Year Follow-Up Study

In the present study of Norwegian adolescents aged 12-15 years, adolescents with reading difficulties (RD) were compared with adolescents without RD on emotional and behavioral problems. Of this group, 191 (7.8%) adolescents reported having RD at T1. At both time points, when compared with the non-RD group, those in the RD group had significantly higher internalizing and externalizing scale scores, a greater number of total problems, and higher scores on all subscales of the YSR. The number of social problems decreased from T1 to T2 for both groups. While externalizing scale scores did not change for the RD group, these problems increased for adolescents without RD. Having RD predicted higher levels of social problems after one year in multivariate analysis controlled for other problems and confounding variables.