Evening star., 1939-03-09
Of Stars, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Field, Laboratory
And Study
By Thomas r. Henry.

By Thomas r. Henry.
child is about half an inch taller
after a two-hour nap-a gain equal to
the normal growth in two months.
The curious phenomenon of height
increase during rest, demonstrating the
semi elasticity of the human body, Is
described in report just made to the
Child Development Committee of the
National Research Council by Drs Janet
M. Redfield and Howard " Meredith of
Iowa State University. They made exact
measurements on % children, and S
years old, in the universitys nursery
school.
The children had rest period every
afternoon. Some fell asleep regularly
while others lay awake on their cots.
Both groups showed increases in stature,
with the sleepers far in the lead. The
average gain for the slumberers. they
report, was trifle less than half an inch
and almost 80 percent of this gain Was
between the hips and top of the head
Those who did not sleep gained about
quarter inch for each rest period.
The phenomenon is explained, they
believe by the constant pressure on the
tissues of the body. The ribs constantly
are being pressed closer together by the
weight above them. This Is especially
true during vigorous play when the It's
sues are shaken down." When the body
is recumbent all this pressure is released
and the naturally elastic body returns
to its greatest length. The explanation
for the increased growth during sleep is
that there is almost complete relaxation
and hence no muscular resistance to the
snap back.
Hitherto gains in height during sleep
have been reported for individuals, chiefly
adults. Some German investigators have
found increases of almost an inch in
adolescents.
The gains registered by the Iowa chill
dren it was found, nearly all disappeared
during the first two hours of play after
their maps.
From the same university is reported
study of 16 children of feeble minded
mothers who were placed in good foster
homes shortly after birth.
In each case, in striking contradiction
to the views of many geneticists, they are
proving of normal intelligence and devel-
oplng as thoroughly normal children,
according to tests reported to the Ma
tional Research Council by Marie Skodak
0f tho Cfofo foF fotl >f
these children also were known and in
nearly every case were worthless indi-
viduals. Both mothers and fathers, Miss
Skodak says, came of families distin-
guished for long records in welfare Offices
even during predepression years and for
familiarity with various State and local
penal. mental and charitable institu-
tions.'
All the babies were taken away from
their mothers before they were months
old and placed in carefully-selected
middle-class homes. All were given
standard intelligence examinations at
tWo-and-a-half and four-and-a-half
years. Miss Skodak expected that they
would show up quite poorly. To the
contrary they showed intelligence quo
tients almost identical with the average
for children of the same ages.
The point has been raised, she says,
that the mental development of these
children will slow up rapidly as they
enter adolescence so that they will revert
nearly to the feeble-minded level when
they are about Is. Thre is no evidence,
she claims, for such sudden declines.
The general conclusions which may
be drawn from these results she re-
ports, "are that children of feeble
minded mothers and grossly inferior
family background, when placed in aver
age or superior foster homes at an early
age, are indistinguishable in mental
development from children whose moth
ers are not feeble minded. The results
indicate that if a child is physically
normal and If the placement is made
at so early an age that the child expe-
riences only the environment of the
foster home, the mental state of the
mother ought to be no bar to adoption in
a permanent foster home"
"A SIuuy VI CIle RIOWIIl Ol IdlkdIlVelleSS
in children-in which in accordance with
tradition-little girls were found to learn
to talk faster and more than little boys,
is reported to the National Research
Council by Drs. Arthur T. Jersild and
Ruth Ritsman of Columbia University
Teachers College
They measured two things in unse-
lected children of both sexes-the size of
vocabularies and the number of words
spoken altogether at different age levels.
They found that in nearly all cases
talkativeness increased faster than vo-
cabulary. The big squirt for both came
in the interval between "a and Al months
of age. They found that children be-
tween AZ and Al months did on an
average of five times as much talking as
did their brothers and sisters between "a
and % months but that they had only