The 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) assessed the children of cohort members (CMs) during the study’s age 34 sweep using the Naming Vocabulary measure from the British Ability Scales (BAS).
When the CM was aged 34, child assessments were conducted with the cohort member’s children. Each of the CM’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.
The BAS Naming Vocabulary measure was administered as part of a set of ‘Early Years’ exercises (for children aged between 3 and 5 years and 11 months). Details on this measure and the data collected are outlined in the table below.
| Year of data collection: | 2004 | ||
| Domain: | Verbal knowledge (expressive) | ||
| Measures: | Spoken vocabulary: | ||
| Expressive language skills | |||
| Vocabulary knowledge of nouns | |||
| Ability to attach verbal labels to pictures | |||
| General knowledge | |||
| General language development | |||
| Retrieval of names from long-term memory | |||
| Level of language stimulation | |||
| CHC: | Gc (Crystallised ability) | ||
| CLOSER Source: | Not currently available in CLOSER Discovery | ||
| Administrative method: | During Parent and Child Interview; Shown picture, child responds verbally, recorded on Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) | ||
| Procedure: | The test items consisted of coloured pictures of objects shown to the child one at a time. The child was asked to name the object in the picture e.g. a picture of a shoe, or a chair. There were 36 pictures in total, but the number of items a child answered depended on their performance. Starting and stopping points were based on different ages and performance, but generally, the better a child did, the more items were administered. These ‘rules’ were programmed into the computer to minimise the decisions interviewers had to make on the spot. More details can be found in the user guide (in “Link to questionnaire” below) on page 8 and in Appendix A1. | ||
| Link to questionnaire: | No link to the questionnaire, but user guide available: https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/BCS70-2004-Guide-to-Child-Assessments.pdf (opens in new tab) | ||
| Scoring: | 36 items (pictures of objects) in total; correct answers were scored one point each. Starting and stopping item depended on age and performance. Raw scores were then adjusted to account for age and ability. | ||
| Item-level variable(s): | basnv01 - basnv36 | ||
| Total score/derived variable(s): | basnvR (raw score) | ||
| basnvA (ability and age adjusted) | |||
| Age of child (months): | Mean = 58.86, SD = 10.58, Range = 36 - 71 | ||
| Descriptives: | basnvR (raw score) | basnvA (ability and age adjusted) | |
| N | 1,238 | 1,238 | |
| Range | 0 - 27 | 10 - 170 | |
| Mean | 17.74 | 99.69 | |
| SD | 4.8 | 19.38 | |
(click image to enlarge) | (click image to enlarge) |
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| Other sweep and/or cohort: | MCS – Age 3 – BAS II Naming Vocabulary | ||
| MCS – Age 5 – BAS II Naming Vocabulary | |||
| ALSPAC – Age 2 – Object Naming Assessment (similar task involving objects) | |||
| Source: | Elliott, C. D., Smith, P., & McCulloch, K. (1996). British Ability Scales Second Edition (BAS II). Administration and Scoring Manual. London: Nelson. | ||
| Elliott, C. D., Smith, P., & McCulloch, K. (1997). British Ability Scales Second Edition (BAS II). Technical Manual. London: Nelson. | |||
| Technical resources: | Parsons, S., Bynner, J., & Foudouli, V. (2005). Measuring basic skills for longitudinal study: the design and development of instruments for use with cohort members in the age 34 follow-up in the 1970 British Cohort Study. London: NRDC. (Link opens in a new tab) | ||
| Parsons, S. (2006). British Cohort Study 2004 Follow up: Guide to Child Assessment Data, CLS Working Paper. London: Centre for Longitudinal Studies. (Link opens in a new tab) | |||
| Example articles: | Cooksey, E., Joshi, H., & Verropoulou, G. (2009). Does mothers' employment affect children's development? Evidence from the children of the British 1970 Birth Cohort and the American NLSY79. Longitudinal and Life Course Studies, 1(1), 95-115. | ||
| Crawford, C., Goodman, A., & Joyce, R. (2011). Explaining the socio-economic gradient in child outcomes: the inter-generational transmission of cognitive skills. Longitudinal and Life Course Studies, 2(1), 77-93. | |||
| de Coulon, A., Meschi, E., & Vignoles, A. (2011). Parents' skills and children's cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes. Education Economics, 19(5), 451-474. | |||
Go to:
- Overview of all cognitive measure in BCS70
- Overview of childhood cognitive measures across all studies
This page is part of CLOSER’s ‘A guide to the cognitive measures in five British birth cohort studies’.