Samples of poor and normal readers were followed through adolescence and into early adulthood to assess continuities in the comorbidity between reading difficulties and disruptive behaviour problems. Reading-disabled boys showed high rates of inattentiveness in middle childhood, but no excess of teacher-rated behaviour problems at age 14 and no elevated rates of aggression, antisocial personality disorder or officially recorded offending in early adulthood. Increased risks of juvenile offending among specifically retarded-reading boys seemed associated with poor school attendance, rather than reading difficulties per se. Reading problems were associated with some increases in disruptive behaviour in their teens in girls.