Session: Midlife and Later-Life Cognitive and Psychological Health
Psychosocial assets and cognitive function across 12 years: A mixed methods investigation from the National Child Development Study (Julia Boehm, Chapman University)
We qualitatively assessed psychosocial assets and examined associations with cognitive function across 12 years. Data came from the National Child Development Study. At age 50, participants wrote about their futures. Two judges rated responses for eight psychosocial assets (e.g., life purpose). At age 62, cognitive function was measured with four validated tasks, which were standardized and averaged together. In unadjusted models, higher levels of each age 50 psychosocial asset were associated with better age 62 cognitive function. Associations for life purpose, personal growth, agency, enjoyment, and positivity were maintained when adjusting for sociodemographic factors. No asset was related to age 62 cognitive function when adjusting for age 50 cognitive function. This work highlights assets to investigate further and suggests midlife cognitive function predicts later functioning.
Associations between biomarkers of preclinical Alzheimer’s disease at age 70 and cognitive performance over the subsequent 7 years in members of the British 1946 Birth Cohort (Kirsty Lu, UCL)
The ‘Insight 46’ study (a sub-study of the National Survey of Health and Development) provides an opportunity to investigate longitudinal associations between biomarkers of preclinical Alzheimer’s disease and early cognitive decline. Participants were assessed at ages ~70, ~73, and ~77 years (max n=702) with various cognitive tests and biomarker measures (blood-based; neuroimaging). Between ages 70-73, there was little cognitive change overall, but faster rates of brain atrophy were associated with subtle memory decline among amyloid-positive participants. By age 77, there was clear divergence in cognitive trajectories with poorer performance among those with preclinical pathologies. As we move closer towards potential presymptomatic treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, Britain’s Birth Cohorts are making a valuable contribution towards the goal of healthy brain ageing for all.
Social mobility and long term episodic memory in Britain (Gindo Tampubolon, NIHR Policy Research Unit on Healthy Ageing, University of Manchester)
Population ageing increases the importance of cognitive capacity for making decisions about retirement and living independently beyond it. I tested whether post-war educational expansion and working-life social mobility eliminate the association between social class of origin and cognition in early old age using the 1958 National Child Development Study. Two outcomes were analysed at age 62: standard episodic memory (immediate + delayed word recall) and long-term episodic memory, capturing accurate half-century recall of childhood household facts (rooms and people at age 11 validated against mothers’ responses). Social mobility trajectories derived in prior work were classified into predominantly manual versus non-manual class trajectories. Models were estimated separately for women and men across three specifications: (i) social origin and controls, (ii) adding social mobility, and (iii) adding weighting to address healthy survivor bias.
Education was consistently associated with both outcomes. For long-term episodic memory, social origin gradients were clearer than for short-term episodic memory, with men from service/professional origins showing a 13 percentage-point higher probability of accurate half-century recall than men from manual origins. These findings indicate that education expansion and working-life social mobility failed to release the grip of social origin on long-term episodic memory.
Psychometric Comparability of the Backward Digit Span Task Across UK Longitudinal Cohorts: A Rasch and Differential Item Functioning Approach (Eren Halil Ozberk, National Foundation for Educational Research)
Backward Digit Span is widely used as a brief indicator of working memory, yet its psychometric comparability across cohort contexts is rarely examined directly. This study examines the task in two UK longitudinal studies: the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS Age 23) and Next Steps (Age 32), both of which provide trial-level cognitive records for the task (CLS, 2024; 2026). Rasch analyses showed highly similar item difficulty hierarchies across cohorts, and pooled logistic differential item functioning analyses indicated minimal item-level bias. Overall, the findings support the interpretation of Backward Digit Span as a broadly comparable working-memory measure across the two cohorts (Baddeley, 2003; Swaminathan & Rogers, 1990).
