Abstract
The 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) is rich in cognitive measures taken during childhood and adolescence, and also includes adult measures of literacy and numeracy. The Age 42 survey in 2012 included a cognitive scale which had been used previously with the cohort in childhood – a vocabulary test first taken in 1986, when the cohort members were 16 years old. This paper asks how vocabulary scores changed between the ages of 16 and 42, taking account of early social background and childhood reading behaviour, but also examining the influence of educational and labour market attainment and reading for pleasure in mid-life. We find that both educational and occupational attainment, and reading habits in child-hood and adulthood, are linked to the development of vocabulary over time.
Highlights
A substantial literature examines the longitudinal development of cognition in childhood and adolescence.The growth in cognitive inequalities according to socio-‐economic status during childhood has been documented by analyses of the British cohort studies of 1946, 1958, and 1970 (Douglas, 1964, Feinstein, 2003, Feinstein, 2004, Fogelman, 1983, Fogelman & Goldstein, 1976, Sullivan, Ketende & Joshi, 2013)
Alice Sullivan and Matt Brown Vocabulary from adolescence to middle-‐age model for the increased heritability of IQ as children get older (Dickens & Flynn, 2001), and may help to account for the growth of cognitive inequalities during childhood that has been observed in the British birth cohorts
We have demonstrated the role of reading for pleasure in the cognitive development of the BCS70 cohort members up to age 16 (Sullivan & Brown, 2015 in press)
Summary
A substantial literature examines the longitudinal development of cognition in childhood and adolescence. Alice Sullivan and Matt Brown Vocabulary from adolescence to middle-‐age model for the increased heritability of IQ as children get older (Dickens & Flynn, 2001), and may help to account for the growth of cognitive inequalities during childhood that has been observed in the British birth cohorts. It is well established that high cognitive performance is linked to upward social mobility, and it is plausible that jobs of higher social class status should be linked to cognitive development between adolescence and mid-‐life. We have demonstrated the role of reading for pleasure in the cognitive development of the BCS70 cohort members up to age 16 (Sullivan & Brown, 2015 in press). In this paper we are able to examine the genres that cohort members read, and whether these literary tastes were linked to the development of their vocabularies. In this paper we examine the role of both childhood and adult circumstances and childhood and adult reading behaviour on vocabulary change between the ages of 16 and 42
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