Overview of cognitive measures across childhood

Click on the individual cognitive measures to find out more.

Age	NSHD	NCDS	BCS70	ALSPAC	MCS
0/1 years				*Age 4 months:** Habituation Task	Age 9 months: Developmental Milestones (incl. motor coordination and vocabulary)
1/2 years			*Age 22 months:** Developmental Milestones (incl. fine locomotor test, speech and language, etc.)	*Age 18 months: Griffiths Scales of Mental Development (GSMD) Locomotor Scale Personal-Social Scale Hearing and Speech Scale Hand and Eye Coordination Scale Performance Scale Age 25 months:* The Reynell Developmental Language Scale Verbal Comprehensions Subscale Object Naming Assessment (phonology screening procedure)
3 years			*Age 42 months:** Developmental Milestones		Age 3: British Ability Scales II (BAS II) Naming Vocabulary Bracken School Readiness Assessment-Revised (BSRA-R)
4/5 years			Age 5: Schonell Reading Test English Picture Vocabulary Test Copying Designs Test Human Figure Drawing Complete a Profile Test	*Age 49 months: Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence - Revised (WPPSI-RUK) Object Assembly Geometric Design Block Design Mazes Picture Completion Information Comprehension Arithmetic Vocabulary Similarities Short-term Memory (Digit Span Test) Age 61 months:* Short-term Memory (Digit Span Test) Short-term Memory (Non-word Repetition) Bus Story Initial Consonants Detection Test Multisyllabic Word Repetition The Reynell Developmental Language Scale Verbal Comprehensions Subscale	Age 5: British Ability Scales II (BAS II) Naming Vocabulary Pattern Construction Picture Similarities
7 years		Age 7: Southgate Group Reading Test Problem Arithmetic Test (NFER devised) Copying Designs Test Human Figure Drawing		Age 7.5: Basic Reading Phoneme Deletion Task Spelling Task Letter Decision Task Motor Ability Task	Age 7: British Ability Scales II (BAS II) Word Reading Pattern Construction National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) Progress in Maths (adapted)
8/9 years	Age 8: Picture Intelligence Reading Comprehension Word Reading Vocabulary			Age 8: Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) Object Assembly Coding Block Design Picture Arrangement Picture Completion Information Comprehension Arithmetic Vocabulary Similarities Test of Everyday Attention for Children (TEA-Ch) Sky Search Dividing Attention (Dual Task) Attentional Control (Opposite Worlds) Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy Faces Subtest Wechsler Objective Language Dimensions Listening Comprehension (second part only) Oral Expression Short-term Memory (Non-word Repetition) Articulatory Skills Age 9: Word and Non-word Reading Spelling Task Neale Analysis Of Reading Ability (NARA II) Sentence Decision Task
10/11 years	Age 11: General Ability Test (Verbal and Non-Verbal) Arithmetic Test Word Reading Vocabulary	Age 11: General Ability Test (Verbal and Non-Verbal) Reading Comprehension Test (NFER devised) Mathematics Test (NFER devised) Copying Designs Test	Age 10: Edinburgh Reading Test (Shortened Version) Friendly Maths Test Pictorial Language Comprehension Test Spelling Dictation Task British Ability Scales (BAS) Word Similarities Word Definitions Recall of Digits Matrices	Age 10: Working Memory (Counting Span Task) Inhibition (Stop-Signal Task) Age 11: Test of Everyday Attention for Children (TEA-Ch) Sky Search Dividing Attention (Dual Task) Attentional Control (Opposite Worlds) Higher Conceptual Reasoning (Bike Drawing Task)	Age 11: British Ability Scales II (BAS II) Verbal Similarities Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) Cambridge Gambling Task Spatial Working Memory Task
12/13 years				Age 12: Phonological Awareness (Spoonerisms) Test of Word Reading Efficiency/fluency (TOWRE) Motor Skill and Movement Test Age 13.5: Reaction Time (Simple Choice Digit Vigilance) TOWRE
14/15 years	Age 15: The Alice Heim Group Ability Test (AH4) The Watts-Vernon Reading Test Mathematics Test			Age 15.5: Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI) Vocabulary Matrix Reasoning Inhibition (Stop Signal Task)	Age 14: Applied Psychology Unit (APU) Vocabulary Test ** Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) Cambridge Gambling Task
16/17 years		Age 16: Reading Comprehension Test (NFER devised) Mathematics Test (NFER devised)	Age 16: Edinburgh Reading Test (Shortened Version) Spelling Test Applied Psychology Unit (APU) Arithmetic Test Vocabulary Test British Ability Scales (BAS) Matrices	Age 17.5: Working Memory (N-back Task) Information Processing Biases (Affective Go/No-Go Task) Behavioural Inhibition (Probability Learning and Reversal Task)	Age 17:* Number Analogies (GL Assessment)
Multi-age****		Age 3 years 11 months and older*: Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Revised (PPVT-R) Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT) Maths Subscale Reading Recognition Subscale Reading Comprehension Subscale McCarthy Scale of Children’s Abilities Verbal Memory Subscale (intended for respondents aged 3 - 6 years 11 months) Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) Digit Span Subscale (intended for respondents aged 7 years and older)	Age 3-5 years 11 months: British Ability Scales (BAS) Naming Vocabulary Early Number Concepts Copying Designs Test (same as used with BCS70 cohort members) Age 6-16 years 11 months: BAS Word Reading Number Skills Spelling

Notes. *Tests administered to a randomly selected sub-sample. **Test administered to cohort member, mother and partner. ***MCS7 not available at time of writing. ****Tests administered to children of cohort member. *****Tests completed by a sub-sample.

Explore the cognitive measures across studies later in life:

Overview of cognitive measures across adulthood

Explore the cognitive measures in the cohort studies covered by this guide:

Further information:

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