Pediatric orthopedic surgeons can estimate when growth will be completed by determining a child's “bone age.” They do this by taking an x-ray of the left hand and wrist to see which growth plates are still open. The bone age may be different from the child's actual age.
You wouldn't know for sure unless you looked at an X-ray of the legs. That said, hand and wrist X-rays are a standard use as a predictor of skeletal maturity in children, so it may be that your son has finished growing. The growth plates in the knees generally close at about the same time as the ones in the wrist.
X-ray of a 16-year-old male with open growth plates and continuing growth. In both sexes, height growth continues until the growth plates close toward the end of puberty. Growth plates usually close at 15–16 years old in girls and at 17–18 years old in boys.
What Are the Signs & Symptoms of a Growth Plate Fracture? A child with a growth plate fracture can have pain, swelling, and trouble moving and using the injured body part. Sometimes there is a deformity — this means that the body part looks crooked or different than it did before the injury.
Growth plates are areas of cartilage at the ends of bones that are key to a child's ability to grow. Once a growth plate hardens into solid bone it closes forever – meaning the child's growth is complete. Typically, that happens around age 14 for girls and age 16 for boys, although it can vary widely.
During the terminal phase of differentiation, cartilage is replaced by blood vessels and organized bone tissue, and once chondrocytes have died, the longitudinal growth of the bone ceases and the growth plate closes.
The growth plates fuse in an ascending order, from the foot to the wrist, and females mature significantly earlier than males.
With a CT scan a doctor may be able to see whether cartilage in the growth plate has started to harden into bone—an indication that the growth plate may be closing too early as a result of injury. A CT scan may also provide a better view than an X-ray of small bone fractures that could be causing your child's symptoms.
Although some men may continue to grow in their 20s, most men's growth plates are closed by 21 years. Hence, it is unlikely for men to grow after 21 years, with some exceptions. In a healthy growth pattern, your bone increases in length due to the growth plates in the bone called epiphyses.
As a child grows, the shafts get longer, and bone gradually replaces the cartilage epiphyses. Through the growing years, a layer of cartilage (the growth plate) separates each epiphyses from the bone shaft. Between 17 and 25 years, normal growth stops. The development and union of separate bone parts is complete.
Boys tend to show the first physical changes of puberty between the ages of 10 and 16. They tend to grow most quickly between ages 12 and 15. The growth spurt of boys is, on average, about 2 years later than that of girls. By age 16, most boys have stopped growing, but their muscles will continue to develop.
A major growth spurt happens at the time of puberty, usually between 8 to 13 years of age in girls and 10 to 15 years in boys. Puberty lasts about 2 to 5 years.
How Tall Should a 12-Year-Old Be? We can only speak to national average heights here in North America, whereby a 12-year-old girl would be between 137 cm to 162 cm tall (4-1/2 to 5-1/3 feet). A 12-year-old boy should be between 137 cm to 160 cm tall (4-1/2 to 5-1/4 feet).
It is difficult to predict exactly when each growth plate will close because different bones stop growing at different times, explains Elizabeth Hubbard, MD, a Duke pediatric orthopaedic surgeon. There is an average time when the growth plates in the long bones should close.
An adult cannot increase their height after the growth plates close. However, there are plenty of ways a person can improve their posture to look taller.
Stunted growth: what actually causes it? The most direct causes are inadequate nutrition (not eating enough or eating foods that lack growth-promoting nutrients) and recurrent infections or chronic or diseases which cause poor nutrient intake, absorption or utilization.
After the growth plates fuse, there is no more increase in height, and we all then shrink gradually as we get older. Normal growth is controlled by a number of hormones: Growth hormone, made in the pituitary gland, which is the most important factor. Thyroid hormone.
Increasing your height after 18 is not possible, even through nutrition and exercise, because the growth plates stop growing. The growth plates (epiphyseal plates) are present at the end of long bones.
The actual spurt was then smaller and, moreover, puberty occurred earlier. In the category of children with lower BMI and later onset of puberty, the spurt was all the stronger. Those whose puberty was delayed also had several extra years to grow in, and quite simply ended up taller.
On an x-ray, growth plates look like dark lines at the ends of the bones. At the end of growth, when the cartilage completely hardens into bone, the dark line will no longer be visible on an x-ray. At that point growth plates are considered closed.