Longitudinal Study of Intelligence: The Sixteenth Year in “Operation Retirement”

Abstract

The serial testing of intelligence in a panel of 405 persons over the age of sixty was commenced in 1966. Analysis of 155 completed progressive scores (WAIS (l), NHAIS (l), WAIS (2), NHAIS (2) obtained over ten years) was reported in 1976. A surviving group of 118 (average age 80) has been re‐tested (WAIS (3)) in 1981. Twenty were then aged between 85 and 95. The 1981 scores have been analyzed by their age‐groups at commencement of the study (60–64, 65–69, 70–74, 75–79). The longitudinal changes have been tested statistically, and show that for all age‐groups (as reported of the larger number in 1976) the average yearly change in the first four tests was negligible until the ninth and tenth decades, when it reached approximately two percent per annum; but that in all groups (regardless of age at commencement) the decline was more marked in the past five years. As before, there was wide variation within age‐groups — some in their eighties actually improving over sixteen years. More detailed analysis of differences between verbal and perceptual abilities will be discussed; and it will be shown that, in the UQOR test, score differences between 1977 and 1981 proved to be unrelated to age.

Health and ageing in Australia: Is there culture after sixty?

“…Even among the "old old", incapacitating illness and physical/mental disability are the exception rather than the norm (Job, 1984;Day, 1985;Harwood and Enticknap, 1984). Even among the "old old", incapacitating illness and physical/mental disability are the exception rather than the norm (Job, 1984;Day, 1985;Harwood and Enticknap, 1984).…”

“…Beliefs about and attitudes towards "frailty" and ill health among the old, and their associated practices, form the unifying theme. Even among the "old old", incapacitating illness and physical/mental disability are the exception rather than the norm (Job, 1984;Day, 1985;Harwood and Enticknap, 1984). This paper 1 examines health and ageing in Australia using the concept of culture as a constitutive human process through which people create specific and different ways of life.…”