SKELETAL AGE IN SUBJECTS WITH MENTAL RETARDATION

Delayed skeletal maturation has been long accepted as a correlate of mental retardation. Three hundred mentally retarded children were examined for skeletal age and failed to show any overall delay of bone age as compared to chronological age. Further, birth weight was found to be unrelated to bone age maturity. Children with severe levels of retardation displayed significant delay in bone development only when profound physical disability was also present. In eight diagnostic categories of mental retardation, only those with metabolic syndromes showed any significant delay in skeletal system maturation. Conversely, mongoloid children showed a larger-than-chance percentage of advanced bone maturation. Skeletal measures therefore are perhaps more reflective of etiological states than of diagnostic classifications in mental retardation.