THE RELATION BETWEEN HEIGHT AND MEASURED EDUCATIONAL ABILITY IN SCHOOL CHILDREN OF THE SAME SOCIAL CLASS, FAMILY SIZE AND STAGE OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT

The correlations between the heights and measured intellectual ability at ages 7-8, 11, 15 years of 2,864 children from a National Survey sample of British children have been calculated after grouping by sex, social class, family size and degree of advancement in growth as measured by stage of puberty. The correlation between height and test score at each of these ages remains at the level of around 0.15 even amongst children of the same sex, age, stage of sexual development, social class and size of familly. Thus the correlation is apparently not simply explained by an advancement in physical development being associated with an advancement in intellectual development.