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 | |
| 50 years (At the time of writing, cognitive tests were provisional pending pilot and fieldwork.) |
|
| Multi-age (Tests completed by the children of cohort members when the cohort member was aged 34 years.) | Age 3-5 years 11 months:
Age 6-16 years 11 months: |