What are the symptoms of developmental delay in boys?

When parents discover that their children have developmental delays, they will be very worried. For example, if a boy has developmental delay, he will not grow tall, has no body hair, and has no obvious symptoms of puberty changes. Compared with boys of the same age, he will be obviously smaller.

1. Some boys see that their peers develop earlier, grow taller, have stronger muscles, and start to grow body hair, but they themselves have not yet shown obvious puberty changes. So they wonder if they are born with some defects, and even develop psychological disorders and inferiority complex. Experts said that if the boy found that he had symptoms of developmental delay, he needed to go to a regular child development and behavior department for examination.

2. Experts say: "Most males will develop secondary sexual characteristics at the age of 11 to 12, such as a rapid increase in height, a lower voice, beard growth, and rapid enlargement of the external genitalia. This is normal male puberty. Generally speaking, if a boy has no obvious signs of testicular enlargement and/or no signs of secondary sexual characteristics development when he reaches the age of 14, he should be considered to have developmental delay."

3. Clinical manifestations: The height and weight of the patient at birth are often normal. As they grow older, the height gap with children of the same age widens. The patient's external genitalia are immature and in the pre-pubertal stage. There is no obvious growth of pubic hair and axillary hair. The patient's testicular volume is less than 4 ml, his voice is still that of a child, and there is no obvious Adam's apple protrusion or beard growth.

4. Bone age determination: Under normal circumstances, bone age is equivalent to actual age. In patients with constitutional delayed puberty, the bone age is more than 2 years later than the actual age;

5. Measurement of blood gonadal hormone levels: Patients with delayed puberty have testosterone levels significantly lower than those of their peers.