Assessment of skeletal age in short and tall children

Abstract Skeletal age assessment has been carried out on 843 children between the ages of 31 and 122 months, selected as the tallest 2.5%, shortest 2.5% and median 5% of the Child Health and Development Studies population. Skeletal age was read from a roentgenogram of the left hand and wrist individually for each of the 30 ossification centers with reference to the Greulich and Pyle Atlas, second edition. The readings were performed blind, by one observer and a 20% sample was read a second time blind to determine the replicability of the assessments. Duplicate readings were within two months of each other in mean bone age and almost always within nine months of each other for individual centers. Estimates of weighted mean bone age vary considerably with stature. Mean bone ages of Negro children tend to be higher than those of White children; those of Chinese and Japanese boys tend to be lower than those of White boys. Generally, similar differences were found with respect to the estimated mean ages of onset of ossification for the ulna, lunate, scaphoid, trapezium and trapezoid.