I commented on other threads before. I think the reason for the correlation is because smaller kids tend to gravitate toward gymnastics - just like taller kids gravitate to basketball. My dd had/has delayed puberty but would of regardless of the sport. She was always small, well before starting the sport. She has visited the endocrinologist multiple times and through bone age scans it was determined that her bone age was about 2.5 yrs behind her chronological age. She was coasting along at about the 25% height until about age 11ish, then she fell to the 3% range. But this was in comparison to a generalized chart that the government put out. The reason for the fall was that while most kids are hitting their pre-pubescent growth spurt, my child who was also 11 (a couple months shy of 12) still was chugging along with bones the age of a 9.5 yr old. Nothing changed with her growth (for her own body), just some chart said she should be growing, but it is just a general thing.
Now, my dd is 15 in the past 2 yrs she has grown 6" and gained close to 30# - she's now a whopping 5' tall and weighs about 101#. See she is now at the tail end of puberty, she may still grow another inch or 2, but I wouldn't doubt it if it didn't happen until she was done the sport, if it happens at all. She was always projected to be about 5' tall by the Endo anyways. I guess I will just throw in here that she trains 20+ hrs a week and has been doing this for about 5 yrs now.
As long as the child is not sickly all the time, I wouldn't worry about being small. Doctors always worry about a small child, never an excessively tall child, but always think there is something wrong with a small child. Sometimes genetic short stature is just genetic short stature! A simple bone age scan can put things into perspective, it's also non-evasive, so a kid won't freak out getting one.
