Child Age Progressions

As parents know, children change and grow so quickly that photographs taken of them become out-of-date after a very short time. In the cases of missing and abducted children, the need for an up-to-date look of the child is critical. Child age progression, either hand drawn or generated on a computer, helps provide a more current and effective facial image for distribution of case information regarding a missing child.

For child age progressions, forensic artists must understand the dynamics of cranio-facial growth and development, incorporate familial traits and trends and maintain the child’s “look”, particularly in the eye area. There are sometimes misconceptions that images developed on computer are automatically produced, but this is not correct. Computer-based images are created by skilled artists who understand facial anatomy and use software as a tool. A computer approach integrating photographs usually allows for better maintenance of the child’s “look” than a hand-drawn approach.