Longitudinal height velocity standards for U.S. adolescents.

Longitudinally based height velocity centiles for U.S. children, appropriate for paediatric clinical use, were derived for growth from ages 7 to 18 years. A series of gender- and race-specific figures present the median velocity curves for children by year of maturation. Smooth 3rd to 97th centile curves, for blacks and whites together, are provided for children who are early, average, and late maturers. The data were taken from 6532 black and white children participating in the Six Cities Study from 1974 to 1989.