Children’s word fluency strategies

Abstract

Two word fluency tasks, the FAS letter fluency task and the "animal" semantic fluency task, were administered to 130 healthy Swedish-speaking children between 6 and 15 years of age. The main aim was to gather normative data on these word fluency tasks for Swedish-speaking children. Another purpose was to examine the switching and clustering strategies used, along with the occurrence of erroneous responses, in relation to demographic data and number of words retrieved. Both phonological and semantic analyses of switching and clustering were conducted. Higher age was found to be related to a more effective use of phonological and semantic switching and clustering strategies. The reference data resulting from this study may be of clinical value in examinations of children with various diagnoses, including language impairment.

Methodological Criteria for Scoring Clustering and Switching in Verbal Fluency Tasks

“…In addition, phonemic analysis in the SVF task and semantic analysis in the PVF could also have been explored in order to adapt to the Brazilian context. International studies have also used this type of analysis when investigating the components of clustering and switching (Sauzéon et al, 2004;Tallberg et al, 2011). However, the adaptation of the method carried out in our study is the initial step to reinforce the use of PVF and SVF tasks, which is important to stimulate other researchers to further develop adaptations of appropriate methods for the Brazilian population.…”

“…In terms of this variation, international studies have found significant differences in the SVF performance between 7-8 years old and 9-10 years old; whereas, when it comes to PVF, the number of words retrieved significantly increases starting at 11-12 years (Sauzéon, Lestage, Raboutet, Kaoua, & Claverie, 2004;Tallberg, Carlsson, & Liberman, 2011). The literature shows that both adults and children have a better performance in SVF tasks in comparison with PVF tasks (Sauzéon et al, 2004;Strauss et al, 2006).…”

“…The subsequent occurrence of changes in the performance of PVF tasks compared with SVF can be explained in terms of development of strategic search skills, cognitive flexibility, switching, and inhibitory control. All these components are dependent on executive functions and the maturation of the frontal lobes, which reaches its peak between 10 and 12 years old (Tallberg et al, 2011). In addition, PVF is also dependent on educational level and growth of the orthographic lexicon (Charchat-Fichman et al, 2011).…”

“…There are international studies of children samples (Hurks et al, 2010;Nieto, Galtier, Barroso, & Espinosa, 2008;Sauzéon et al, 2004;Tallberg, et al, 2011) and adult samples (Clark et al, 2012;Raboutet et al, 2010;Troyer, 2000;Troyer et al, 1997) with typical development. There are studies using samples of neurological patients with Parkinson's disease (Anzak et al, 2011;), Alzheimer's disease (Troyer, Moscovitch, Winocur, Leach et al, 1998;Zhao, Guo, & Hong, 2013), Huntington's disease (Rich, Troyer, Bylsma, & Brandt, 1999), stroke (Vivas & Naveira, 2010), and brain lesions without specific causes (Okruszek, Rutkowska, & Wilinska, 2013;Stuss, et al, 1998;Tröster et al, 1998;.…”

Evidências de validade dos escores estratégicos na tarefa de fluência verbal infantil

“…Três escores estratégicos têm sido mais utilizados com adultos (Abwender, Swan, Bowerman, & Connolly, 2001) e crianças (Nieto, Galtier, Barroso, & Espinosa, 2008;Tallberg, Carlsson, & Lieberman, 2011;Takács, Kóbor, Tárnok, & Csépe, 2014): 1. Número de agrupamentos de palavras produzidas sucessivamente que compartilham características semânticas (pertencentes a uma subcategoria semântica) ou fonológicas (iniciadas ou terminadas com a mesma sílaba); 2.…”