Selected auxological aspects of autism in children

5 Abstract Introduction. Autism is a severe developmental disorder with a neurobiological basis, whose etiology has yet to be fully clarified. It is a multi-factorial illness, influenced largely by genetic predispositions as well as external factors. The goal of this paper was to determine basic auxological attributes of male autistic patients with incomplete growth and to describe how this complex disorder of a developing brain alters somatic development of these severely ill individuals. Data and Method. The study is founded on transversal data of 69 boys from the whole of Czech Republic with the diagnosis child autism and age from 3,3 to 13,4 years. All patients were examined at the Department of Clinical Anthropology of the Pediatric Clinic, Motol University Hospital, 2nd Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, in the period from 2000 to 2008. Attributes that objectify state of growth, state of nourishment and cranium size were measured. A part of the study was also the evaluation of the influence of heredity on body height and cranium size. The collected auxological data were converted to SDS, the results were tested by means of a one-sample t-test. Results. Boys with autism have significantly decreased body height (x̄ = −0,36 ± 1,12, p = 0,010), midparental height in accordance with standards and..