Growth Spurts

[stevo247]

Is the process of human physical growth a steady, regular pattern thru all stages of development; or is it more acurately described as a process of starts and stops? I remember reading somewhere about growth spurts of like a couple of inches practically overnight. Is that typical for the growth process per se? Do plants grow in spurts? How about the growth process of biological organisms overall? Slow and steady, or bursts?

[Country Boy]

Not "a couple of inches over night" certainly but most boys, around the age of 11 or 12 will grow several inches over a few months. Yes, it is fairly typical of living creatures to grow at different rates at different places in their life span- what you are calling growth spurts.

[stevo247]

I found a little info towards a clearer picture of the process:

 

We refer to the classical work of Davenport [14] (nowadays an auxological standard), which suggests that the human growth rate exhibits three maxima: one intrauterine, a second one around the 6-th year and a third one other around the 16-th year.

 

In addition to the above main accelerations, many authors have observed short-term oscillations in longitudinal data. In the paper of Butler and McKie [16], 135 children were monitored at six monthly intervals from 2 to 18 years of age. Longitudinal studies reveal a cyclic, rhythmic pattern, as a sequence of spurts and lags occurring up to adolescence.

 

http://www.tbiomed.com/content/5/1/5