This investigation was planned to analyze the following problems on the physical development in childhood.
(1) The first problem is about inquiry of the correlations of the measurement values between the earlier and the later age stages in the physical development in childhood.
(2) The second problem concerns the correlations of the development of eleven parts of body at each age (male and female separately) and about inquiry of the developmental changes in the correlations.
(3) In the third problem, the correlation matrices at each age are factorized separately, and we try inquiry of the factor structure on the physical development and its developmental changes.
(4) The fourth problem is about inquiry into the developmental change from dumpy to lanky body forms through the four indices: upper and lower limbs, stem, and over-all indices.
The measurements consist of the eleven items: stature, weight, chest girth, stem length, head girth, shoulder width, hip width, upper limb length, lower limb length, arm girth and leg girth. The data were collected from the same subjects through all the ages from 6 to 11. The number of subjects is 88 males and 66 females.
Results are as follows:
1) The physical developmental level at entrance into elementary school predicts considerably that of the later childhood. Especially about head girth, stature, weight, chest girth, stem length, and leg girth this tendency is notable.
2) The results of the correlations of parts of body with each other are as follows:
1. Somewhat stronger correlative tendency is found in case of girls than in that of boys, but any definite correlational developmental change with years is not found.
2. The correlations between each horizontal measurement and between each vertical measurement are both close.
3. The correlations between head girth and the other parts of body are not close, but stature, weight, shoulder breadth, chest girth, and stem length have closer correlations with the other parts of body, and especially about stature and weight this tendency is notable.
3) Results of the factor analysis at each age show that there is only a little difference both in age and sex groups as regards factor structure. I have found a general factor concerning size maturity and two group factors. One factor is horizontal measurement. The other factor is vertical measurement. The former is divided into breadth and thickness of bodies; the latter into-length of limbs and that of trunk. But in the physical devlopment of childhood the latter plays a more important part than the former.
4) The body form in childhood changes gradually from dumpy to lanky with years as the child grows older.
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