Brain Growth Spurts and Plateau Periods in Normal Elementary School Pupils

• Main Author: Bhulpat, Cheerapan
• Other Authors: Luttrell, H. Dale
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: North Texas State University 1986
• Subjects: head circumferences; brain growth; elementary students; Brain > Growth.; Child development.
• Online Access: https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc330926/

The purposes of this study were to determine whether brain growth spurts occur in normal pupils and to determine whether there was a uniform difference in head circumference between boys and girls. Subjects were 3,062 normal elementary pupils, grades one through six, from one suburban school district. Fiberglass measuring tapes were used to measure pupils' head circumference. The hypotheses of the study predicted that the relationship between head circumference and age would be linear. Further, it was predicted that the differences in head circumference between boys and girls would be uniform over seven specified ages. The first hypothesis was tested using a test for linear trend and deviation from linear trend using the General Linear Models procedure. The results indicated that there was a significant linear trend between head circumference and age. The test for deviation from the linear trend was not significant. This would suggest that any deviation from a straight line observed in the data can be attributed to chance. It was concluded that since there was no significant deviation from linear trend, it would suggest a continuous growth of the brain for the ages included in this study. A two-way analysis of variance was used to test the second hypothesis. The results indicated that the male mean head circumference was significantly larger than that of the female in all age groups. As the interaction of sex and age groups was tested, there was no interaction between sex and age groups. It was concluded that since the interaction between sex and age groups was not significant, there is no indication of differences in the rates of brain growth between boys and girls.