Standards for somatotyping children: I. The prediction of young adult height from children's growth data

SummaryLongitudinal series of measurements on 143 boys and 80 girls were used to develop equations for predicting height from three combinations of variables: (1) from height at age alone, (2) from height at age plus growth rate over the preceding year, (3) from the preceding plus determination of whether or not the subject had passed his age of peak velocity of puberal height growth. Effectiveness of these equations was tested in a cross-validating sample of Berkeley Guidance Study subjects. From early adolescence onward, predictions based on (2) were somewhat more accurate and those based on (3) appreciably more accurate than those based on single observations. In the original sample, after age 6 height could be predicted with an average error under an inch, this error decreasing rapidly with onset of puberty. Use of a predicted height as one of the three parameters for objectively determining somatotype appears possible by mid-childhood. An appendix gives the prediction formulae.