13 - Gender and Sex Differences in Dyslexia and Dyscalculia

Summary

There are intrinsic similarities between boys and girls in the cognitive and neural mechanisms characterizing typical reading and mathematics development, with few and small behavioural differences emerging between genders in older age groups. The similarities between the cognitive and neural processes of boys and girls in these domains are sometimes surprising because folk beliefs about differences between males and females pervade scientific discourse in psychology and even impact empirical research (Hyde and Linn 1988) and clinical practices (Shaywitz et al. 1990). The universal patterns of cognitive and neural development across gender groups are important to appreciate, not only because they are potentially surprising empirical facts, but also because they expose candidate sources of disorder in reading and mathematics. Research on typically developing children can reveal the specialized cognitive and neural mechanisms at the core of reading-specific and mathematics-specific deficits in boys and girls.