How Children Score on Discriminant Functions Designed for Adults

Abstract

Existing discriminant functions for sex, as used in forensic anthropology, are designed to be used with adults. The question of how well they work with children has not been adequately explored. I construced a discriminant function for sex using 7,428 adults from the Boas Anthropometnc Data Set and used the function to estimate sex for 6,102 children from this data set. I examined the accuracy of sexing for individuals of all ages. The accuracy was about 50 percent for people 12 and under, about 90 percent for people 19 and older, and increased in a nearly linear fashion between ages 12 and 19. The function scores small peuple as female.