Executive functioning and verbal fluency in children with language difficulties

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThis study provided a detailed analysis of verbal fluency in children with language difficulties, and examined the relative contributions of executive functioning (executive-loaded working memory, switching, inhibition) and language ability to verbal fluency performance. Semantic and phonemic fluency, language, and executive functioning tasks were completed by 41 children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 88 children with typical development. Children with SLI showed difficulties with most aspects of verbal fluency (rates of output, errors, switching) relative to typical children. Language ability predicted nearly every aspect of phonemic fluency performance and some aspects of semantic fluency performance. The relationships between verbal fluency and executive functioning were modest: inhibition was related to error scores on the phonemic fluency task, but relationships with executiveloaded working memory and switching were absent. Educationally, these results emphasise the underlying importance of language abilities in generation tasks like verbal fluency, but point to the importance of inhibition skills for error monitoring. Interventions to improve search and generation abilities have the potential to offer broader benefits in the classroom for children with language difficulties.

Verbal and Non‐verbal Fluency in Adults with Developmental Dyslexia: Phonological Processing or Executive Control Problems?

“…Thus, in line with Henry et al (2015; see also Troyer et al, 1997), the boys' names trial was omitted from the finer-grained analyses conducted on the number of switches, cluster size and quartiles data gathered from Category Fluency. However, in the case of Category Fluency, it was not possible to assess the data on boys' names for each individual participant because these might be highly subjective and idiosyncratic (e.g.…”

“…Luo, Luk, & Bialystok, 2010;Pennington & Ozonoff, 1996) and describes the ability to generate verbal or non-verbal items according to certain rules. Henry, Messer, & Nash, 2015;Luo et al, 2010). Although measures of executive fluency have been obtained previously in dyslexia (e.g.…”

Explicit and Implicit Verbal Response Inhibition in Preschool-Age Children Who Stutter

“…Another potential way in which inhibition could affect language processing and, hence, speech fluency, is during speech monitoring (e.g., Henry, Messer, & Nash, 2015;Im-Bolter et al, 2006). Among the more current models of speech monitoring, the conflict-based account proposed by Nozari, Dell, and Schwartz (2011) suggests that errors are detected when conflict (or competition) occurs at the time of selection among activated words or phonemes.…”

Verbal fluency tests: Normative data for Spanish-speaking pediatric population

“…Due to the sensitivity of VFT to rapidly and accurately detect brain dysfunction, as well as its ease of administration has made VFT one of the most widely used tests in both clinical work and research (Azuma, 2004). VFT have been used to detect cognitive impairment in a wide range of populations such as children and adolescents with traumatic brain injury (Goldstrohm & Arffa, 2005); autism spectrum disorder (Begeer et al, 2013); attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (Rubiales, Baker, & Russo, 2013); schizophrenia (Landrø & Ueland, 2008); and children with communication difficulties (Cohen, Morgan, Vaughn, Riccio, & Hall, 1999;Henry, Messer, & Nash, 2015), among others.…”