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Cognitive measures in the 1970 British Cohort Study

Click on the individual cognitive measures in the table below to find out more.

Note that at age 22 and 42 months, due to medical concerns about the effect of fetal malnutrition in brain cell proliferation, a sub-sample of BCS children were studied. A 10% random sample of all births was included together with those children who were considered to be at risk from fetal malnutrition.

At age 34, child assessments were conducted with the cohort member’s children. Each of the cohort member’s eligible children were asked to complete three exercises designed to measure a range of verbal and numerical abilities. Although dependent on the child’s age and abilities, each set of exercises was expected to take an average of 20 minutes to complete.

Age Measure
22 months ( Tests administered to a randomly selected sub-sample.)

42 months ( Tests administered to a randomly selected sub-sample.)

5 years

10 years

16 years

21 years (Tests completed by a sub-sample.)

34 years

42 years

46-47 years

51 years

Multi-age (Tests completed by the children of cohort members when the cohort member was aged 34 years.)

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1970 British Cohort Study