Similarity in cognitive ability measurement at age 7-8

Explore where selected cohorts overlapped in their assessment of cognitive abilities at the ages of 7 to 8.

For background guidance on the table below, see the main harmonisation feasibility page in this guide.

Ability domain	NSHD (Age 8)	NCDS (Age 7)	ALSPAC (Age 7.5)	ALSPAC (Age 8.5)	MCS (Age 7)
Gf (Fluid ability)	Picture Intelligence			Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) Object Assembly
Gc (Crystallised ability)	Vocabulary			Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) Picture Completion Information Comprehension Vocabulary Similarities
				Listening Comprehension
				Oral Expression
Gc/Gf (Crystallised ability/ Fluid ability)				Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) Picture Arrangement
Gc/Grw (Crystallised ability/ Reading & writing)	Reading Comprehension	Southgate Group Reading Test	Basic Reading		BAS II Word Reading
			Phoneme Deletion Task
Grw (Reading & writing)	Word Reading		Spelling Task
Gq (Quantitative knowledge)		Problem Arithmetic Test		Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) Arithmetic	NFER Progress in Maths (adapted)
Gv (Visual processing)		Copying Designs Test			BAS II Pattern Construction
		Human Figure Drawing
Gs/Gv (Processing speed/ Visual processing)			Letter Decision Task	Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) Coding
				Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) Block Design
				TEACh (the Tests of Everyday Attention for Children) Selective Attention and Motor Control: Sky Search Dividing Attention (Dual Task)
Gp (Psychomotor ability)			Motor Ability Task
Gkn (Domain-specific knowledge)				DANVA: Faces subtest
Gsm (Short-term memory)				TEACh (the Tests of Everyday Attention for Children): Selective Attention and Motor Control: Sky Search Dividing Attention (Dual Task) Attentional Control (Opposite Worlds)
				Nonword Repetition
Glr (Long-term storage & retrieval)				Listening Comprehension
Ga (Auditory processing)				Articulatory Skills

Additional detail on the individual measures is available in the childhood cognition section of this guide.

Explanations of the ability domains are provided in the introductory section.

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Explore where similar cognitive abilities have been measured across the studies at other ages:

• Age 5
• Age 10-11
• Age 14-16
• Age 46-53

Explore the full set of cognitive abilities assessed by each of the cohort studies in this guide:

• 1946 National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD)
• 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS)
• 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70)
• Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)
• Millennium Cohort Study (MCS)

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