Information on infant developmental milestones was obtained from mothers when survey members were aged two years. Some of these provide markers of neurodevelopment, i.e. gross motor skills (age of first sitting, standing and walking unaided) and early language (age at articulating words other than names for parents - “mum”, “dad”, “nan”). Other developmental milestones obtained at this age were age at weaning from breast or bottle, and age at first teething. Later milestones such as the age the study member began learning to read were recorded in 1953.

Attendance at nursery was recorded in 1948 and 1950.

When study members were aged six years, mothers were asked about bladder and bowel training. Repeat questions were used on bedwetting in 1950 (4yrs), 1952 (6 yrs), 1954 (6 yrs) and 1955. Trajectories of childhood enuresis were derived and these were used in a number of publications¹⁾

Full details on puberty can be found here

• You can obtain a list of the standard topic variables to use in an NSHD data sharing request by selecting the link at the end of this page.
  
• The XML version of the link can be sent to the LHA as part of a data sharing request.
  
• Simply use your browser's Save As facility to save the list of variables to a file on your computer.
  
• You can then email the XML version to us in support of your application, or when you fill in the data access application form and it asks which variables you need, mention the 'developmental milestones standard basket' along with any others.

HTML version of the standard variables to view

Download the XML for the developmental milestones standard basket