A Time Series Analysis of Growth in Nose Height During Childhood1

This study pertains to the growth of the individual child. It is related historically to the pioneering longitudinal studies of Montbeillard (23) in the eighteenth century, Bowditch (4) in the nineteenth century, and Baldwin (3) in the early years of the present century. At closer range, it is a part of a program of research on individual growth fostered at the State University of Iowa during the past two decades (16). In the pursuit of biologically valid knowledge on individual growth it is important to select for study measures that can be obtained with very high dependability (i6); skeletal nose height is such a measure. Seriatim data for this dimension, spaced at yearly intervals, have been amassed and analyzed. The findings are organized under three headings: (i) trend, (2) velocity, and (3) relation with other variables. Primary emphasis is placed on the classification of magnitude trends, the analysis of velocity differences, and the comparison of body traits with respect to growth rate correlations and increment trends.2