Dwarfism in Healthy Children: Its Possible Relation to Emotional, Nutritional and Endocrine Disturbances

Failure to Thrive: Overview of Diagnosis and Management

“…Neglected infants and toddlers have been known to stop growing, gaining weight and achieving normal developmental milestones. This was described in the 1940's (Talbot et al, 1946) and later in more detail as a form of hypopituitarism, commonly known as emotional deprivation or psychosocial dwarfism (Powell et al, 1967). This type of hypopituitarism is reversible as the home environment of the child improves (Albanese et al, 1994 Although the terms nonorganic FTT and psychosocial dwarfism are sometimes used interchangeably and the psychosocial family dynamics are similar in both conditions, the clinical features differ.…”

An overview of emotional maltreatment and failure-to-thrive

“…Some of the best early documentations of the failure-to-thrive syndrome were those of Spitz (1945), Talbot, Sobel, Burke, Lindeman and Kaufman (1947) and Widdowson (1951).…”

“…A`S erious interactional problems have been found in FTT children and their mothers' FTT is a relationship disorder' number of studies have been done over the years to test growth hormone eciency in children of short stature (Talbot et al, 1947;Patton and Gardner, 1962;Powell, Brasel and Blizzard, 1967;Apley, Davies, Russell Davis and Silk, 1971;Whitten, 1976;Blizzard and Bulatovic, 1993;Skuse, Albanese, Stanhope, Gilmore and Voss, 1996). Psychosocial short stature, formerly called psychosocial dwarfism, was de®ned by Patton and Gardner (1962) as children who are exceptionally short, with weight below that expected for the height (though, exceptionally, that weight may be appropriate for the height, and the child appears well nourished, but appearances may be deceptive because neither weight nor height is normal for the chronological age).…”

“…Some investigators (Talbot et al, 1947;Patton and Gardner, 1962;Powell et al, 1967;Green, Deutsch and Campbell, 1987) postulated that emotional disturbances might have a direct eect on intermediary metabolism so as to interfere with anabolic processes. Talbot and colleagues studied over 100 dwarfs, age 2 1 2 ±15 years, but extensive medical investigations did not show any organic causes for severe growth failure.…”

A Study of the Food Intake of a Group of Children with Cerebral Palsy in the Lakeville Sanatorium

“…This accentuated the effect of the inadequate protein intake among the children from 7-12 years of age. 27,29 The picture of apparent individual food capacity serves to re-emphasize the characteristics of the subjects in relation to nutrition. The children who, in general, have eating problems, poor food habits, retarded bone development, fair or poor dental health, and frequent infections, also have an apparent individual capacity which leads to a poor food intake.…”