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The purpose of this research was to make an auxological study of the child population in Trento. The study was carried out in three stages: in the first stage standards were established for height and weight, i.e. "anthropometric models" to be used as a reference in the subsequent assessment of children from Trento using an auxological method; during the second stage the most suitable auxological method was selected and the levels of normality, paranormality and extranormality of the anthropomorphic features were calculated; in the third stage, the above-mentioned auxological method was used to assess the growth in height and weight of the individual subjects, taking into consideration the frequency and type of auxopathies in the Trento child population. As regards the first stage of the study, after measuring the height and weight of almost all the Trento children between the ages of 6-11, the average values were calculated and the relative standard deviations of height and weight at the different ages and the weight as compared to the different heights considered. The "experimental curves" obtained were then smoothed by calculating the equations of the technical development curves of the characters examined with the best fit procedure. The smoothed values are shown in Tables 2 and 4 and the corresponding curves are given in the graphs 1-6 (median curves with a dotted line). An examination of the data in Table 2 reveals that between 6 and 10 years, males surpass the females in height and in weight, whereas, starting from 10 years and 4 months, the mean height-weight values become greater in the females due to the earlier prepuberal-puberal auxological thrust which occurs in females. After the age of 13, as can be seen in similar auxological studies recently carried out by us in Trento adolescents aged 11-14 (Tonelli et al., 1988), when the auxological thrust also takes place in males, the height of the latter regains supremacy. The mean height and weight values measured by us in 1985 in Trento school-children aged between 6-11 was then compared with those found in their peers almost twenty years earlier (1966-67) by Bergamo et al. (1968), the increases in these features during the period considered was also calculated. This comparison revealed that during the aforementioned period there was a clear increase in somatic dimensions of Trento children at all the ages examined, which varied from approximately 37 cm for height to approximately 1.5-4 kg for weight.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)