Short stature and language development in the United Kingdom: a longitudinal analysis of children from the Millennium Cohort Study

Table 6 Catch-up growth by age 5 years and language scores in children between 3 and 11 years of age (n = 11,860)

	Model 1		Model 2		Model 3
	Wald chi(6) = 125.36 Prob > chi² < 0.001		Wald chi(7) = 308.78 Prob > chi² < 0.001		Wald chi(19) = 3718.73 Prob > chi² < 0.001
*Fixed effects*	Coef	95% CI	Coef	95% CI	Coef	95% CI
Timepoint	− 0.022	− 0.077, 0.033	− 0.021	− 0.076, 0.034	− 0.026	− 0.081, 0.029
Catch-up growth (ref: no catch-up growth)
Catch-up by 5 years	0.221	− 0.003, 0.445	0.180	− 0.043, 0.403	0.121	− 0.088, 0.330
No short stature	0.372***	0.201, 0.542	0.286**	0.117, 0.456	0.187*	0.028, 0.346
Constant	− 0.404	− 0.577, − 0.231	− 0.877***	− 1.063, − 0.692	− 1.309***	− 1.495, − 1.123
*Random effects*
Variance (timepoint)	0.042	0.038, 0.047	0.042	0.038, 0.047	0.042	0.038, 0.047
Variance (constant)	0.679	0.638, 0.722	0.661	0.620, 0.704	0.472	0.436, 0.511
Covariance (timepoint, constant)	− 0.115	− 0.128, − 0.103	− 0.113	− 0.126, − 0.101	− 0.097	− 0.110, − 0.085
Variance (residual)	0.520	0.510, 0.530	0.520	0.510, 0.530	0.520	0.510, 0.530

Verbal and language ability random slopes mixed effects model including an interaction between timepoint and catch-up growth, adjusted for sex (M1), for sex and birth weight (kg) (M2) and all covariates (M3). Interactions were not significant and are not shown. Catch-up growth: reference is no catch-up growth (≤ − 2 SDS at age 3 and 5 years). Catch-up by 5 years indicates short stature (≤ − 2 SDS) at age 3 years but not at age 5 years. No short stature indicates the child had height > − 2 SDS at age 3 years

ISSN: 1741-7015