Measurement of Normal and Reportedly Malformed Palatal Vaults. II. Normal Juvenile Measurements

¹ Division of Oral Pathology, School of Dentistry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota

The palates of 1,098 Minnesota children, ages 6 to 18, and 224 adult Minnesotans were measured for height, width, and length to establish standards of these dimensions for comparison with the reportedly high or narrow palates of people with various syndromes. To facilitate comparisons, an index that gives a numerical rating of relative height or narrowness was computed by the formula: Height/Width X 100.

Examination of the data suggested that the average relative height of the palate increases somewhat more rapidly after age 11 years than between the ages of 6 and 11 years and that, during the same period, the average relative height of the male palate becomes increasingly greater than that of the female.