title: The syndrome of abuse dwarfism (psychosocial dwarfism or reversible hyposomatotropism).
abstract: In abuse dwarfism the behavioral signs include some or all of the following: (1) a history of unusual eating and drinking behavior, reversible on change of domicile, such as eating from a garbage can and drinking from a toilet bowl, stealing food, alleged picky eating and rejecting food at the table, polydipsia and polyphagia, possibly alternating with vomiting and possibly also with self-starvation; (2) a history of such behavioral symptoms as enuresis, encopresis, social apathy or inertia, defiant aggressiveness, sudden tantrums, crying spasms, insomnia, eccentric sleeping and waking schedule, pain agnosia, and self-injury, all occurring only in the growth-retarding environment; (3) retarded motor development, with improvement on removal of the child from the domiclle of abuse; (4) retarded intellectual growht, reversible on change of domicile by as much as 30 to 50 IQ points; and (5) a history of pathologic family relationships, including unusual cruelty and neglect, either somatic or psychic or both.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002649:Child Abuse; D004392:Dwarfism / Q000209:etiology*; D004435:Eating; D004521:Educational Measurement; D006128:Growth; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007360:Intelligence; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity; D010146:Pain; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D011606:Psychosexual Development; D011610:Psychosocial Deprivation; D012890:Sleep; D013060:Speech