Individual Variations in Rate of Skeletal Maturation

Abstract

FRY¹ recently criticized the Tanner and Whitehouse (TW) method of assessing skeletal maturity² on the grounds that it shows excessive fluctuation in the velocity of maturation. He stated that, in a child whose chronological age advances 6 months, the method may show no advance of skeletal age or, alternatively, a skeletal advance of 23 months. Fry seems to have assigned TW ratings only to the plates in the Greulich–Pyle Atlas, so it is not at all clear how he arrives at the criticism, nor, indeed, precisely what is implied. I am able, however, to supply actual data on the mean rate of maturation of a population of children and on the variation between individual children rated in successive years by the TW method.