The normal short child: Community study of children in Newcastle upon Tyne

Abstract

This paper describes a community study of children who were born in 1960, 1961, and 1962, and who at the age of 10 years were of short stature but without evidence of organic disease. There was a tendency for the children to have low birthweights and delayed skeletal development, and most of their parents were short. In addition, the children scored poorly in tests of mental ability and attainment. Many of the children had been reared in poor social conditions and it is suggested that this played an important role in causing the short stature of at least one-third of the children.