The syndrome of abuse dwarfism (psychosocial dwarfism or reversible hyposomatotropism)
J. Money
In abuse dwarfism the behavioral signs include some or all of the
following: (1) a history of unusual eating and drinking behavior,
reversible on change of domicile, such as eating from a garbage can and
drinking from a toilet bowl, stealing food, alleged picky eating and
rejecting food at the table, polydipsia and polyphagia, possibly
alternating with vomiting and possibly also with self-starvation; (2) a
history of such behavioral symptoms as enuresis, encopresis, social apathy
or inertia, defiant aggressiveness, sudden tantrums, crying spasms,
insomnia, eccentric sleeping and waking schedule, pain agnosia, and
self-injury, all occurring only in the growth-retarding environment; (3)
retarded motor development, with improvement on removal of the child from
the domiclle of abuse; (4) retarded intellectual growht, reversible on
change of domicile by as much as 30 to 50 IQ points; and (5) a history of
pathologic family relationships, including unusual cruelty and neglect,
either somatic or psychic or both.
