HEAD CIRCUMFERENCE, MENTAL RETARDATION, AND GROWTH FAILURE

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to re-affirm our clinical impression that non-institutionalized children whose head circumference was below minus 2 standard deviations were mentally subnormal and frequently had growth failure. A group of 134 children with a head circumference below minus 2 standard deviations from the mean were studied, and all but one were mentally subnormal. The most severe mental retardation was noted in the group of children with a head circumference of minus 4 standard deviations or below. We found, as have others, that children with mental retardation have height and weights below the expected norm and that children with a head circumference below minus 2 standard deviations have even lower mean heights and weights. The head circumference of 31 children with growth failure and normal intelligence was normal for age and sex, therefore disproving the concept that the abnormally small child has a proportionally small head. In the child with growth failure, should the head be proportionally small (below minus 2 standard deviations), mental subnormality should be suspected. We feel that the head circumference measurement has taken on new clinical significance in that our data support its use in suspecting the association of mental subnormality in children with growth failure and a head circumference of below minus 2 standard deviations from the mean for age and sex.