Recalled Age at Menarche: A Follow-up to the Michigan State University Motor Performance Study

ABSTRACT

Sexual maturation is one method by which researchers account for developmental timing during growth. In a longitudinal motor performance study (MPS), mothers reported their own recalled age at menarche and their daughters.’ Approximately twenty years later, a sample of those daughters provided their recalled age at menarche. Study purposes were to determine whether: 1) average age at menarche for this sample was similar to the extant literature; 2) daughters’ and mothers’ ages at menarche collected during the MPS differed; and 3) a retrospective assessment of age at menarche (daughters’ reports as adults) was correlated to recall data (mothers’ reports of daughters’ age). Descriptive and inferential statistics were calculated for the sample; via probit analysis, MPS females were average in maturational timing. Mothers and daughters did not differ in menarcheal age; daughters’ initial reported mean age at menarche correlated with their recalled mean age at follow up, r = 0.82 (p < .0001).

KEYWORDS:

• Age at menarche
• Michigan State University Motor Performance Study
• longitudinal research