Before measuring the standing height of children, they should remove their shoes and should stand with their heels and back in contact with an upright wall. The head should be held so that the child looks straight ahead with the outer canthus of the eye socket being in the same horizontal plane as the external auditory meatuses and not with the nose tipped upwards. A right-angled block is then slid down the wall until the bottom surface touches the child's head and a scale that is fixed to the wall is read. During measurement, the child should be told to stretch the neck to be as tall as possible although care must be taken to prevent the heels from coming off the ground. Gentle but firm traction should be applied by the measure under the mastoid processes to keep the child stretched. In this way the variation in height from morning to evening is minimised.
