The symptoms include decreased growth hormone (GH) and somatomedin secretion, very short stature, weight that is inappropriate for the height, and immature skeletal age.
It can cause the body to completely stop growing but is generally considered to be temporary; regular growth will resume when the source of stress is removed.
While the cure for PSS is questionable, some studies show that placing the child affected with the disease in a foster or group home increases growth rate and socialization skills.
[3] When a police raid in 1987 released the children held by an Australian group known as The Family, one twelve-year-old girl weighed under 20 kg (44 lbs) and was under 120 cm (4 ft) tall.
The extreme abuse and neglect she faces is described as very stressful for her, and as a result she is described as simultaneously being as short as a child half her age and having an expression more appropriate for an older woman.
[6] In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Chief Bromden claims that one of Nurse Ratched's orderlies, Williams, a black man with dwarfism, gained his short stature from seeing white men rape his mother.