Cognitive assessments are exercises that test how participants think and how their minds are developing (or declining). They typically take the form of a series of questions or set of activities (a bit like games).
Study teams tend to use standardised assessments that have been thoroughly tested to ensure that they are capturing the right information. Using the same instruments over time or across studies can make comparisons easier.
For example, participants in the 1970 British Cohort Study took nine cognitive assessments at age 16, including a vocabulary test. The participants were given the same vocabulary test again at age 42. This allowed researchers to see whose vocabularies improved over time, and to determine what factors affected this.
One of the things they found was that readers of quality newspapers made more progress in vocabulary over time than people who did not read newspapers. Interestingly, tabloid readers actually made slightly less progress than those who never read newspapers at all.
Vocabulary is an example of an aspect of cognitive ability that needs to be measured with an age-appropriate instrument. For example, while 16- and 42-year-olds might be able to complete a written assessment, this might be a lot harder for a 5-year-old.
Many studies use the British Ability Scales (BAS) to measure cognition. The BAS are a set of age-appropriate standard tests of cognitive abilities and educational achievements. For example, the BAS Naming Vocabulary test assesses young children’s spoken vocabulary by showing them a series of coloured pictures of objects and asking them to name each one.
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