SummaryTriceps and subscapular skinfold thicknesses were measured in 222 pairs of like-sex twins (78 monozygotic and 144 dizygotic) aged 3-15 years. Log transformations of the measurements were standardized for age and sex and the results used to estimate heritability-that is, the proportion of total variation determined by genetic factors. The overall contribution of non-genetic familial effects was small. There were appreciable differences in heritability between limb and trunk fat and between the sexes and at different ages. Over the age of 10 heritability was high for both sites in boys and girls. In younger children environmental factors contributed more to the variation. IntroductionThe separation of heredity and enviromment in the determination of body fat has proved difficult for want of suitable material and sufficient data. The use of weight alone to measure fatness in humans is uninformative, and weight-for-height indices do little to improve the information because of the large differences in body proportions between people of the same height and sex. Skinfold thicknesses correlate well with total body fat in both adults' and children. 2 One study of monozygotic twins brought up together and apart depended only on measurement of weight.3 Another reported parent/child correlation coefficients of weight and skinfold thickness in children up to the age of 7 years; for weight

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The Reynell Developmental Language Scales (R.D.L.S.) were developed in response to a clinical need at a center for handicapped children. They are designed for the separate assessment of different aspects of language development over the age range one to five years. The scales are based on the normal pattern of language development. They were developed with handicapped children and then standardized on a sample of 636 non-handicapped children in southeast England. Three scales are described; Verbal Comprehension A, which requires no speech; Verbal Comprehension B, which requires neither speech nor hand function; and Expressive Language, which includes separate sections on language structure, vocabulary, and content.The Reynell Developmental Language Scales (R.D.L.S.) were constructed in an attempt to scale some of the normal stages of development in receptive and expressive language over the age range one to five years, in order that they might be used clinically in the assessment of children with delayed or deviant language development.The study was in response to a clinical need at an assessment center for handicapped children. At that time there were no scales available which covered the important early stages of language development (1 to 5 years) and which completely separated receptive and expressive aspects so that assessment of comprehension could be carried out with children who have no speech.There are many other assessment techniques, but none that fulfilled our particular need. The ITPA (McCarthy and Kirk 1961) does not give enough coverage to the younger ages, some of the material is not familiar to British children, and it did not hold their attention. Other techniques, such as those of McCarthy were also found to be unsuitable for our particular needs with the very young children.The scales described here (R.D.L.S.) were first developed to meet our own needs at the assessment center, but the demand has been such that they are now standardized and published (Reynell, 1969a). The first publication is an experimental edition. After a field trial of a few years it is proposed to revise the scales and then carry out a more extensive standardization. At present only a British standardization is planned, but it is hoped that it might also be possible to obtain norms for other English-speaking countries.

Forty-nine children who had a virus infection of the central nervous system (CNS) when under 1 year of age were studied. One child had died during the initial illness and three of the survivors were severely disabled. The other survivors, more than 5 years after the initial illness, were all attending normal schools. These 45 children, together with 45 matched controls, were examined. We confirm the findings of other studies that virus infections of the CNS in infancy may cause severe disabilities in some cases, and may depress intellectual abilities in others, even though they appear to have recovered fully. Many of the children who had a virus infection of the CNS in infancy had adverse birth and social histories and so were exceptionally vulnerable, but these factors did not account fully for the findings, and when their influence was included in the analysis, the index children still had a mean performance IQ (WISC) 6 points lower than the control children (P less than 0.05), whereas there was less than 1 point difference between the verbal IQs. Attention is drawn to the problem of virus infections in neonatal units.