Somatotype in the Mentally Retarded Children

The purpose of the present study is to clarify the somatotype in the mentally retarded and the normal children 9 through 16 years of age. The mentally retarded subjects consist of 443 boys and 250 girls. The I.O.'s of most of them are under 75. The intellectually normal subjects are 339 boys and 302 girls. The three soatotype components (endomorphy, mesomorphy and ectomorphy) were measured with the use of the Heath-Carter's Anthropometric Method. The results obtained are as follow:1) The mean endomorphic components ranged f ro n 3.1 to 4.8 in the mentally retarded boys (MRB) and from 2.9 to 3.9 in the normal boys (NB). The differences between the means for the endomorphic component in the two male groups were significant at the 0.05 or 0.01 level at ages 10, and 14. This component was rated higher in MRB than in NB. The largest mean difference occured at age 10.2) The mean endomorphic components ranged from 4.5 to 5.9 in the mentally retarded girls (MRG) and from 3.4 to 5.4 in the normal girls (NG). The differences between the means in the two female groups were significant at the 0.05 or 0.01 level at ages 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 16. This component was rated higher in MRG than in NG.3) The mean mesomorphic components ranged from 3.8 to 4.2 in MRB and from 3.9 to 4.4 in NB. The differences between the means in the two male groups were not significant at all ages.4) The mean mesomorphic components ranged from 3.6 to 4.5 in MRG and from 3.1 to 3.7 in NG. The differences between the means in the two female groups were significant at the 0.05 or 0.01 level at ages 11, and 16. At all ages where significant differences occurred, the higher means were obtained in MRG.5) The mean ectomorphic components ranged from 2.8 to 3.5 in MRB and from 3.2 to 3.6 in NB. Normal male children had significantly high t value only at the age of 10 years.6) The mean ectomorphic components ranged from 1.7 to 2.9 in MRG and from 2.5 to 3.5 in NG. The differences between the means in the two female groups were significant at the 0.05 or 0.01 level at ages 11, and 16. At all ages where significant differences occurred, the higher means were obtained in NG.7) The percentage distributions of the MRB and NB into the five somatotype categories (Primary Endomorph, Mesomorph, Ectomorph; Endomesomorphy and Mid-type) on the basis of the anthropometric assessment were 22%-5%-8%-20%-45% and 10%-6%-9%-9%-66% at ages 9, 10 and 11; 15%-11%-14%-17%-43% and 4%-10%-15%-13%-58% at ages 12, 13 and 14; 8%-8%-19%-11%-54% and 8%-13%-10%-12%-57% at ages 15 and 16.The percentage distributions of MRG and NG were 27%-0%-7%-22%-44% and 19%-0%-10% -3%-68% at ages 9, 10 and 11; 45%-3%-9%-22%-21% and 41%-2%-9%-2%--46% at ages 12, 13 and 14; 47%-0%-2%-30%-21% and 62%-1%-1%-10%-26% at ages 15 and 16

Anthropometry · Developmental psychology · Mentally retarded · Significant difference · Somatotypes · Children's Physical and Motor Development · Internal Medicine · Medicine · Psychology

• Somatotyping by physical anthropometry

  Open Access•R W Parnell•American Journal of Physical…•1954

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• A modified somatotype method

  Open Access•Barbara Honeyman Heath, J E Lindsay Carter•American Journal of Physical…•1967

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