The developmental health examination

Abstract

Summary 1.A medical health examination is an assessment of constitutional status; a developmental health examination is an assessment of specific progress in physical growth and maturation, in mental expansion, in emotional stability, and in other aspects of normal healthy childhood. 2.The conduct of a developmental health examination calls for certain types of measurement which are discussed in some detail in the body of this paper. 3.Some of these determinations may readily be incorporated in the routine pediatric serial examinations, especially the determinations of physical growth and maturation which, properly interpreted, throw a very significant light on the progress of growth in childhood. 4.Of these determinations now available the roentgenographic investigation holds the greatest immediate promise. 5.Greater precision in definition of the superior type of childhood is easily attainable as well as in the segregation of simple and self-rectifying types of retardation from the pathological forms which call for medical supervision to restore metabolic integrity. 6.The developmental health examination opens up a new vista of understanding in the problems and personality of the healthily growing child. Summary 1.A medical health examination is an assessment of constitutional status; a developmental health examination is an assessment of specific progress in physical growth and maturation, in mental expansion, in emotional stability, and in other aspects of normal healthy childhood. 2.The conduct of a developmental health examination calls for certain types of measurement which are discussed in some detail in the body of this paper. 3.Some of these determinations may readily be incorporated in the routine pediatric serial examinations, especially the determinations of physical growth and maturation which, properly interpreted, throw a very significant light on the progress of growth in childhood. 4.Of these determinations now available the roentgenographic investigation holds the greatest immediate promise. 5.Greater precision in definition of the superior type of childhood is easily attainable as well as in the segregation of simple and self-rectifying types of retardation from the pathological forms which call for medical supervision to restore metabolic integrity. 6.The developmental health examination opens up a new vista of understanding in the problems and personality of the healthily growing child.