title: Tempo and amplitude in growth.
abstract: Growth is defined as an increase of size over time with time usually defined as physical time. Yet, the rigid metric of physical time is not directly relevant to the internal dynamics of growth. Growth is linked to maturation. Children and adolescents differ in the tempo at which they mature. One calendar year differs in its meaning in a fast maturing, and in a slow maturing child. The slow child needs more calendar years for completing the same stage of maturity. Many characteristics in the human growth curve are tempo characteristics. Tempo - being fast or slow maturing - has to be carefully separated from amplitude - being tall or short. Several characteristic phenomena such as catch-up growth after periods of illness and starvation are largely tempo phenomena, and do usually not affect the amplitude component of growth. Applying Functional Data Analysis and Principal Component Analysis, the two main sources of height variance: tempo and amplitude can statistically be separate and quantified. Tempo appears to be more sensitive than amplitude to nutrition, health and environmental stress. An appropriate analysis of growth requires disentangling its two major components: amplitude and tempo. The assessment of the developmental tempo thus is an integral part of assessing child and adolescent growth. Though an Internet portal is currently available to process small amounts of height data (www.willi-will-wachsen.com) for separately determining amplitude and tempo in growth, there is urgent need of better and practical solutions for analyzing individual growth.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hermanussen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001827:Body Height / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008137:Longitudinal Studies