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A guide to the cognitive measures in five British birth cohort studies
Explore the measures by cohort study
1946 National Survey of Health and Development

Cognitive measures in the 1946 National Survey of Health and Development

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

Along with raw and normalised variables for each cognitive test in childhood, the NSHD contains three standardised summary variables (COG8H, COG11H, and COG15H). These were calculated by transforming the raw scores of each measure to standardised z-scores, summing these z-scores, then re-standardising this total score (Richards et al., 1999). Thus, these derived variables provide a simple global cognitive functioning score.

Age	Measure
8 years	Picture Intelligence Reading Comprehension Word Reading Vocabulary
11 years	General Ability Test (Verbal and Non-Verbal) Arithmetic Test Word Reading Vocabulary
15 years	The Alice Heim Group Ability Test (AH4) The Watts-Vernon Reading Test Mathematics Test
26 years	The Watts-Vernon Reading Test
43 years	Verbal Learning/ Word List Recall Test Long-term Recall Visual Memory Timed Letter Search/Letter Cancellation Test Motor Speed and Praxis
53 years	Verbal Learning/ Word List Recall Test Timed Letter Search/ Letter Cancellation Test Verbal Fluency (Animal Naming) Test Prospective Memory National Adult Reading Test (NART) Delayed Verbal Memory
60-64 years	Verbal Learning/ Word List Recall Test Timed Letter Search/ Letter Cancellation Test Reaction Time Test
68-70 years	Verbal Learning/ Word List Recall Test Timed Letter Search/ Letter Cancellation Test Finger Tapping Test Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination-III (ACE-III): Total Score Attention/Orientation Scale Memory Fluency Language Test Visuospatial Skills