Dwarfism is often diagnosed in childhood on the basis of visible symptoms. A physical examination can usually suffice to diagnose certain types of dwarfism, but genetic testing and diagnostic imaging may be used to determine the exact condition. In a person's youth, growth charts that track height can be used to diagnose subtle forms of dwarfism that have no other striking physical characteristics.

Short stature or stunted growth during youth is usually what brings the condition to medical attention. Skeletal dysplasia is usually suspected because of obvious physical features (e.g., unusual configuration of face or shape of skull), because of an obviously affected parent, or because body measurements (arm span, upper to lower segment ratio) indicate disproportion. Bone X-rays are often key to diagnosing a specific skeletal dysplasia, but are not the sole diagnostic tool. Most children with suspected skeletal dysplasias are referred to a genetics clinic for diagnostic confirmation and genetic counseling. Since about the year 2000, genetic tests for some of the specific disorders have become available.

During an initial medical evaluation of shortness, the absence of disproportion and other clues listed above usually indicates causes other than bone dysplasias.

Many types of dwarfism are currently impossible to prevent because they are genetically caused. Genetic conditions that cause dwarfism may be identified with genetic testing, by screening for the specific variations that result in the condition. However, due to the number of causes of dwarfism, it may be impossible to determine definitively if a child will be born with dwarfism.

Dwarfism resulting from malnutrition or a hormonal abnormality may be treated with an appropriate diet or hormonal therapy. Growth hormone deficiency may be remedied via injections of human growth hormone (HGH) during early life.

Achondroplasia can be detected before birth by prenatal ultrasound. A DNA test can be performed before birth to detect homozygosity, wherein two copies of the mutant gene are inherited, a lethal condition leading to stillbirths. Clinical features include megalocephaly, short limbs, prominent forehead, thoracolumbar kyphosis and mid-face hypoplasia. Complications like dental malocclusion, hydrocephalus and repeated otitis media can be observed. The risk of death in infancy is increased due to the likelihood of compression of the spinal cord with or without upper airway obstruction.

There are several ways to determine if a child has chondrodystrophy, including parent testing and x-rays. If the fetus is suspected of having chondrodystrophy, the parents can be tested to find out if the fetus in fact does have the disease. It is not until the baby is born that a diagnosis can be declared. The diagnosis is declared with the help of several x-rays and charted bone growth patterns. Once the child is diagnosed the parents have to monitor the children because of several different factors. As the child gets older, hearing, eyesight and motor skills may be defective. Also, breathing (apnea) and weight problems (obesity) may occur. Structurally, scoliosis, bowed legs (genu varum), and arthritis may result.

A skeletal survey is useful to confirm the diagnosis of achondroplasia. The skull is large, with a narrow foramen magnum, and relatively small skull base. The vertebral bodies are short and flattened with relatively large intervertebral disk height, and there is congenitally narrowed spinal canal. The iliac wings are small and squared, with a narrow sciatic notch and horizontal acetabular roof. The tubular bones are short and thick with metaphyseal cupping and flaring and irregular growth plates. Fibular overgrowth is present. The hand is broad with short metacarpals and phalanges, and a trident configuration. The ribs are short with cupped anterior ends. If the radiographic features are not classic, a search for a different diagnosis should be entertained. Because of the extremely deformed bone structure, people with achondroplasia are often "double jointed".

The diagnosis can be made by fetal ultrasound by progressive discordance between the femur length and biparietal diameter by age. The trident hand configuration can be seen if the fingers are fully extended."

Another distinct characteristic of the syndrome is thoracolumbar gibbus in infancy.

The diagnosis of this condition can be done via x-rays (with lack of normal distance L1 to L5), and additionally genetic testing is available to ascertain hypochondroplasia However, the physical characteristics(physical finding) is one of the most important in determining the condition.

A combination of medical tests are used to diagnosis kniest dysplasia. These tests can include:

- Computer Tomography Scan(CT scan) - This test uses multiple images taken at different angles to produce a cross-sectional image of the body.

- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) - This technique proves detailed images of the body by using magnetic fields and radio waves.

- EOS Imaging - EOS imaging provides information on how musculoskeletal system interacts with the joints. The 3D image is scanned while the patient is standing and allows the physician to view the natural, weight-bearing posture.

- X-rays - X-ray images will allow the physician to have a closer look on whether or not the bones are growing abnormally.

The images taken will help to identify any bone anomalies. Two key features to look for in a patient with kniest dysplasia is the presence of dumb-bell shaped femur bones and coronal clefts in the vertebrae. Other features to look for include:

- Platyspondyly (flat vertebral bodies)

- Kyphoscoliosis (abnormal rounding of the back and lateral curvature of the spine)

- Abnormal growth of epiphyses, metaphyses, and diaphysis

- Short tubular bones

- Narrowed joint spaces

Genetic Testing - A genetic sample may be taken in order to closely look at the patient's DNA. Finding an error in the COL2A1 gene will help identify the condition as a type II chondroldysplasia.

Medical diagnosis is required. Clinical tests can be performed, as well as molecular genetic testing. The available tests include:

Sequence analysis of the entire coding region

- Severe achondroplasia with developmental delay and acanthosis nigricans (SADDAN) - Sanger Sequencing: Diagnosis, Mutation Confirmation, Pre-symptomatic, Risk Assessment, Screening

- Craniosynostosis: Diagnosis

- Invitae FGFR3-Related Disorders Test: Pre-symptomatic, Diagnosis, Therapeutic management

Mutation scanning of select exons

- Skeletal Dysplasia Panel: Diagnosis, Prognostic

Sequence analysis of select exons

- Severe Achondroplasia with Developmental Delay and Acanthosis Nigricans (SADDAN, FGFR3): Diagnosis, Mutation Confirmation, Risk Assessment

- Severe Achondroplasia, Developmental Delay, Acanthosis Nigricans: Diagnosis, Mutation Confirmation

Deletion/duplication analysis

- Invitae FGFR3-Related Disorders Test: Pre-symptomatic, Diagnosis, Therapeutic management

Life with SADDAN is manageable, although therapy, surgery, and lifelong doctor surveillance may be required.

Since primordial dwarfism disorders are extremely rare, misdiagnosis is common. Because children with PD do not grow like other children, poor nutrition, a metabolic disorder, or a digestive disorder may be diagnosed initially. The correct diagnosis of PD may not be made until the child is 5 years old and it becomes apparent that the child has severe dwarfism.

There are as yet no effective treatments for primordial dwarfism. It is known that PD is caused by inheriting a mutant gene from each parent. The lack of normal growth in the disorder is not due to a deficiency of growth hormone, as in hypopituitary dwarfism. Administering growth hormone, therefore, has little or no effect on the growth of the individual with primordial dwarfism, except in the case of Russell Silver Syndrome. Individuals with RSS respond favorably to growth hormone treatment, this fact is supported by The Magic Foundation. Children with RSS that are treated with growth hormone before puberty may achieve several inches of additional height. In January 2008, it was published that mutations in the pericentrin gene (PCNT) were found to cause primordial dwarfism. Pericentrin has a role in cell division, proper chromosome segregation, and cytokinesis.

There is no treatment at this time to promote bone growth in chondrodystrophy patients. Certain types of growth hormone seem to increase the rate of growth during the first year of life/treatment, but have no substantial effect in adult patients. Only a few surgical centers in the world perform, experimentally, leg and arm lengthening procedures. Most common therapies are found in seeking help from: family physicians, pediatrics, internists, endocrinologists, geneticists, orthopedists and neurologists.

The term thanatophoric is Greek for "death bearing". Children with this condition are usually stillborn or die shortly after birth from respiratory failure, however a small number of individuals have survived into childhood and a very few beyond. Survivors have difficulty breathing on their own and require respiratory support such as high flow oxygen through a canula or ventilator support via tracheostomy. There may also be evidence of spinal stenosis and seizures.

The oldest known living TD survivor is a 29-year-old female. One male lived to be 26 years old. Another male lived to age 20. TD survivor, Chrisopher Álvarez, 18, is Colombian living in New York. Two children with TD aged 10 and 12, a male and a female, are known in Germany. There is also a 6-year-old male living with TD and two 1-year old males.

Life expectancy for individuals with hypochondroplasia is normal; the maximum height is about 147 cm or 4.8 ft.

Osteogenesis imperfecta is a rare condition in which bones break easily. There are multiple genetic mutations in different genes for collagen that may result in this condition. It can be treated with some drugs to promote bone growth, by surgically implanting metal rods in long bones to strengthen them, and through physical therapy and medical devices to improve mobility.

Fibrochondrogenesis is quite rare. A 1996 study from Spain determined a national minimal prevalence for the disorder at 8 cases out of 1,158,067 live births.

A United Arab Emirates (UAE) University report, from early 2003, evaluated the results of a 5-year study on the occurrence of a broad range of osteochondrodysplasias. Out of 38,048 newborns in Al Ain, over the course of the study period, fibrochondrogenesis was found to be the most common of the recessive forms of osteochondrodysplasia, with a prevalence ratio of 1.05:10,000 births.

While these results represented the most common occurrence within the group studied, they do not dispute the rarity of fibrochondrogenesis. The study also included the high rate of consanguinous marriages as a prevailing factor for these disorders, as well as the extremely low rate of diagnosis-related pregnancy terminations throughout the region.

Because kniest dysplasia can affect various body systems, treatments can vary between non-surgical and surgical treatment. Patients will be monitored over time, and treatments will be provided based on the complications that arise.

Infants with type 1 thanatophoric dysplasia also have curved thigh bones, flattened bones of the spine (platyspondyly) and shortened thoracic ribs. Note: Prenatal ultra-sound images of the ribs sometimes appear asymmetrical when in fact they are not. In certain cases, this has caused a misdiagnosis of Osteogenisis Imperfecta (OI) type II.

An unusual head shape called kleeblattschädel ("cloverleaf skull") can be seen with type 2 thanatophoric dysplasia.

"Osteosclerosis", an elevation in bone density, is normally detected on an X-ray as an area of whiteness, and is where the bone density has significantly increased. Localized osteosclerosis can be caused by injuries that compress the bone, by osteoarthritis, and osteoma.

Early journal reports of boomerang dysplasia suggested X-linked recessive inheritance, based on observation and family history. It was later discovered, however, that the disorder is actually caused by a genetic mutation fitting an autosomal dominant genetic profile.

Autosomal dominant inheritance indicates that the defective gene responsible for a disorder is located on an autosome, and only one copy of the gene is sufficient to cause the disorder, when inherited from a parent who has the disorder.

Boomerang dysplasia, although an autosomal dominant disorder, is "not" inherited because those afflicted do not live beyond infancy. They cannot pass the gene to the next generation.

The fibrocartilaginous effects of fibrochondrogenesis on chondrocytes has shown potential as a means to produce therapeutic cellular biomaterials via tissue engineering and manipulation of stem cells, specifically human embryonic stem cells.

Utilization of these cells as curative cartilage replacement materials on the cellular level has shown promise, with beneficial applications including the repair and healing of damaged knee menisci and synovial joints; temporomandibular joints, and vertebra.

Many features of gerodermia osteodysplastica (GO) and another autosomal recessive form of cutis laxa, wrinkly skin syndrome (WSS, ""), are similar to such an extent that both disorders were believed to be variable phenotypes of a single disorder.

Several delineating factors, however, suggest that gerodermia osteodysplastica and wrinkly skin syndrome are distinct entities, but share the same clinic spectrum.

While the prevailing feature of wrinkly, loose skin is more localized with GO, it is usually systemic, yet eases in severity with age during the course of WSS. Also, as the fontanelles ("soft spots") are usually normal on the heads of infants with GO, they are often enlarged in WSS infants.

While WSS is associated with mutations of genes on chromosomes 2, 5, 7, 11 and 14; GO has been linked to mutations in the protein GORAB. A serum sialotransferrin type 2 pattern, also observed with WSS, is not present in GO patients.

But perhaps the most notable feature, differentiating GO from WSS and similar cutis laxa disorders, is the age-specific metaphyseal peg sometimes found in GO-affected long bone, near the knee. Not appearing until around age 4–5, then disappearing by physeal closure, this oddity of bone is thought to represent a specific genetic marker unique to GO and its effects on bone development.

People with Laron syndrome have strikingly low rates of cancer and diabetes, although they appear to be at increased risk of accidental death due to their stature.

Spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita (abbreviated to SED more often than SDC) is a rare disorder of bone growth that results in dwarfism, characteristic skeletal abnormalities, and occasionally problems with vision and hearing. The name of the condition indicates that it affects the bones of the spine (spondylo-) and the ends of bones (epiphyses), and that it is present from birth (congenital). The signs and symptoms of spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita are similar to, but milder than, the related skeletal disorders achondrogenesis type 2 and hypochondrogenesis. Spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita is a subtype of collagenopathy, types II and XI.

The disorder was first described in 1969 by the German-American Human Geneticist Meinhard Robinow (1909–1997), along with physicians Frederic N. Silverman and Hugo D. Smith, in the "American Journal of Diseases of Children". By 2002, over 100 cases had been documented and introduced into medical literature.

Insular dwarfism, a form of phyletic dwarfism, is the process and condition of the reduction in size of large animals over a number of generations when their population's range is limited to a small environment, primarily islands. This natural process is distinct from the intentional creation of dwarf breeds, called dwarfing. This process has occurred many times throughout evolutionary history, with examples including dinosaurs, like "Europasaurus", and modern animals such as elephants and their relatives. This process, and other "island genetics" artifacts, can occur not only on traditional islands, but also in other situations where an ecosystem is isolated from external resources and breeding. This can include caves, desert oases, isolated valleys and isolated mountains ("sky islands"). Insular dwarfism is one aspect of the more general "island rule", which posits that when mainland animals colonize islands, small species tend to evolve larger bodies, and large species tend to evolve smaller bodies.