ALSPAC – Age 24 – Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) Vocabulary Task
The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) assessed their cohort members (CMs) during the study’s age 24 sweep (Focus at 24) using a measure of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) Vocabulary Task.
Details on this measure and the data collected from the CMs are outlined in the table below.
| Years of data collection: | 2015-2017 |
| Domain: | Verbal ability |
| Measures: | Verbal comprehension |
| Lexical knowledge | |
| Long-term memory | |
| Language development | |
| CHC: | Gc (Crystallised intelligence) |
| CLOSER Source: | Explore this sweep in CLOSER Discovery: ALSPAC Early Adulthood (19 years – 30 years 11 months) (opens in a new tab) |
| Administration method: | Trained interviewer; clinical setting; oral answers |
| Procedure: | The interviewer read aloud a list of words, asking the participant to define each one in turn. Responses were scored on a 0 – 2 scale depending on the quality of response. |
| Although the WISC-II tasks were developed for children, the vocabulary task was deemed still appropriate to use because the words used for the test were based on previously collected ALSPAC data and it was important to use the same tests across the data collection waves in order to track change in cognitive ability over time. | |
| Link to questionnaire: | http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/researchers/our-data/clinical-measures/ (opens in a new tab) |
| Scoring: | Responses were scored on a 0 – 2 scale depending on the quality of response. |
| Item-level variable(s): | Not readily available. |
| Total score/derived variable(s): | FKWI1050 |
| Descriptives: | N = 3974 |
| Mean = 8.01 | |
| SD = 2.953 | |
| Range = 0 – 12 | |
| Age of participants (months): | Mean = 293.81 months, SD = 9.779, Range = 268.5 – 318.5 |
| Other sweep and/or cohort: | ALSPAC Age 8 |
| NSHD Age 8 and 11 (similar tests) | |
| BCS70 Age 10 (similar British Abilities Scale task) | |
| Source: | Wechsler, D. (1991). WISC-III: Wechsler intelligence scale for children: Manual. Psychological Corporation. |
| Technical resources: | Kaufman, A. S., & Lichtenberger, E. O. (2000). Essentials of WISC-III and WPPSI-R assessment. John Wiley & Sons Inc. |
| Example articles: | Horwood, J., Salvi, G., Thomas, K., Duffy, L., Gunnell, D., Hollis, C., … & Zammit, S. (2008). IQ and non-clinical psychotic symptoms in 12-year-olds: results from the ALSPAC birth cohort. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 193(3), 185-191. |
| Northstone, K., Joinson, C., Emmett, P., Ness, A., & Paus, T. (2012). Are dietary patterns in childhood associated with IQ at 8 years of age? A population-based cohort study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 66(7), 624-628. |
For the named items in the table above, links are provided to their corresponding content on CLOSER Discovery. Where a variable range is provided, full variable lists can be accessed through the ‘Variable Groups’ tab on the linked CLOSER Discovery page.