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ALSPAC – Age 18 months – GSMD Performance Scale

The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) assessed their cohort members (CMs) at 18 months’ age (Children in Focus Clinic) using the Griffiths Scales of Mental Development (GSMD) Performance Scale.

Details on this measure and the data collected from the CMs are outlined in the table below.


Year of data collection:1993-1994
Domain:Non-verbal ability
Measures:Length estimation
CHC:Gv (Visual processing)
Gp (Psychomotor abilities)
CLOSER Source:Explore this sweep in CLOSER Discovery: ALSPAC Early Years (13 months to 4 years 11 months) (opens in a new tab)
Administration method:Trained interviewer; clinical setting; guided play session
Procedure:During a guided play session, the researcher presented the child with a series of boards and objects (insets) that could fit into shapes that were cut out of the boards. The researcher demonstrated how the insets fitted into the board, and the child was given the opportunity to copy. This was done with increased difficulty (increased number of holes and shapes in boards).
Link to questionnaire:http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/researchers/our-data/clinical-measures/ (opens in new tab)
Scoring:Standardised DQ (0 - 100)
Item-level variable(s):Not readily available
Total score/derived variable(s):cf776
cf782

Explore these variables in CLOSER Discovery: ALSPAC Children in Focus 4Mth-61Mth Clinics Dataset (opens in a new tab)
Descriptives:Unadjusted scoreAge adjusted score
N = 1,174N = 1,142
Range = 0 - 35Range = 64.38 - 135.45
Mean = 21.14Mean = 113.83
SD = 3.10SD = 12.68
(click image to enlarge)
(click image to enlarge)
Age of participants (weeks):Mean = 79.90 weeks, SD = 1.47, Range = 76 - 87
Other sweep and/or cohort:None
Source:Griffiths, R. (1970). The abilities of young children. London: Child Development Research Centre.
Technical resources:Griffiths, R. (1970). The abilities of young children. London: Child Development Research Centre.
Example articles:Little, R. E., Northstone, K., Golding, J., & ALSPAC Study Team. (2002). Alcohol, breastfeeding, and development at 18 months. Pediatrics, 109(5), e72-e72.
Hibbeln, J. R., Davis, J. M., Steer, C., Emmett, P., Rogers, I., Williams, C., & Golding, J. (2007). Maternal seafood consumption in pregnancy and neurodevelopmental outcomes in childhood (ALSPAC study): an observational cohort study. The Lancet, 369(9561), 578-585.

For the named items in the table above, links are provided (where applicable) to their corresponding content on CLOSER Discovery.


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This page is part of CLOSER’s ‘A guide to the cognitive measures in five British birth cohort studies’.