This correction article relates to the response by Alan Barclay and Jennie Brand-Miller that was published as part of a research article [1] authored by Rikkers et al. During the publication process, errors were introduced into the formatting which affected the response only and caused the paragraphs to appear in the incorrect order. The research article reported by Rikkers et al. was not affected. A corrected version of the response has subsequently been published as a correspondence article [2]. BioMed Central apologize for any inconvenience caused.