Functional equivalence of the National Adult Reading Test (NART) and Schonell reading tests and NART norms in the Dynamic Analyses to Optimise Ageing (DYNOPTA) project

Abstract

This study investigates the functional equivalence of two measures of irregular word pronunciation—National Adult Reading Test (NART) and Schonell—which are popular instruments used to assess verbal neurocognitive functioning and to estimate premorbid IQ. We report norms for the NART in a pooled sample from 3 Australian population-based studies of adults aged 65–103 years. Norms were stratified by sex and age left school in 5-year age groups. The NART and the Schonell had a strong linear relation, allowing for the imputation of NART scores based on Schonell performance within 1 study. Neither measure was sensitive to the effects of sex after adjusting for the effects of age and education. Early school leavers performed worse on both measures. Data pooling enables greater precision and improved generalizability of NART norms than do methods that use single older adult samples.

Keywords:

• Verbal abilities
• Harmonization
• Premorbid IQ
• Crystallized intelligence
• National Adult Reading Test
• Norms
• Dynamic Analyses to Optimise Ageing
• Australian Longitudinal Study of Ageing
• Canberra Longitudinal Study of Ageing
• Sydney Older Persons Study

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The data on which this research is based were drawn from several Australian longitudinal studies including: the Australian Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ALSA), the Canberra Longitudinal Study of Ageing (CLS), and the Sydney Older Persons Study (SOPS). These studies were pooled and harmonized for the Dynamic Analyses to Optimise Ageing (DYNOPTA) project. DYNOPTA was funded by National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Grant 410215. O.P. is supported by NHMRC Clinical Career Development Award Fellowship 510184, K.A. is supported by NHMRC Fellowship 366756, and H.C. is supported by NHMRC Fellowship 525411. All studies would like to thank the participants for volunteering their time to be involved in the respective studies. Details of all studies contributing data to DYNOPTA, including individual study leaders and funding sources, are available on the DYNOPTA website (http://dynopta.anu.edu.au).The findings and views reported in this paper are those of the authors and not those of the original studies or their respective funding agencies.