“‘I think she [Brooke Greenberg] has differential growth of her body,’ says [Richard] Walker [of the University of South Florida College of Medicine in Tampa]. ‘It’s not growing like a unified organism, but in fragmented parts.’

“Her brain, for example, is scarcely more mature than that of a newborn infant. Although she can recognize her mother and make gestures and noises to articulate her wishes, she can’t talk.

“Yet her bones – although still abnormally short – are around 10 years old, as determined by the maturity of the cells and structures. And despite being a teenager, she still has her baby teeth, with an estimated developmental age of about eight years.

“Investigations also trace some of her many medical problems, such as inability to swallow naturally without choking, to staggered growth of body systems that normally grow in unison and work together. Because Brooke’s respiratory and gastrointestinal systems don’t coordinate, and because her food pipe is abnormally small, she can’t swallow properly and continues to be fed through a tube to her stomach.”