Phonological and Semantic Verbal Fluency Tasks in a Sample of Argentinean Children

Abstract

The aim of this work is to obtain data about the evolutionary pattern of performance in verbal fl uency tasks for a sample of Argentinean primary school aged children (3 rd , 5 th y 7 th grade) in semantic and phonological verbal fl uency tasks. For the semantic fl uency task, children were assessed in different categories: animals, fruits and vegetables, and body parts for living things domain, and means of transport, musical instruments and clothes for inanimate objects. For the phonological fl uency assessment, children were tested with /f/, /a/ and /s/ phonemes. Both fl uency tasks showed differences between grades, indicating the infl uence of education. Besides, irrespective of the grade, children performed better on the semantic fl uency tasks. Results in the semantic fl uency task also showed a better performance for the living things domain over the inanimate objects domain. Further analysis on the results showed that 3 rd grade children have the worst performance, compared to 5 th and 7 th grade children. The results of our work are discussed taking in account cognitive mechanisms, executive functions and semantic memory development.Keywords: Semantic fl uency, phonological fl uency, educational status, children. Fluência Semântica e Fonológica em uma Amostra de Crianças Argentinas ResumoNo presente trabalho oferecemos dados de tarefas de fl uência verbal para crianças argentinas de 3°, 5° e 7 ° ano do ensino fundamental. Os participantes foram avaliados com uma tarefa de fl uência semântica, que testou as categorias de animais, frutas e legumes e partes do corpo para o domínio dos seres vivos e meios de transporte, instrumentos musicais e roupas para os objetos inanimados. As crianças também foram avaliadas com uma tarefa de fl uência fonológica que testou os fonemas /f/, /a/ e /s/. Os dados obtidos apontam para diferenças de desempenho entre as tarefas e mostraram um melhor desempenho

Patrones de correlación de fluencias semánticas y fonológicas en niños en edad escolar

“…Hasta hoy, para la población argentina se ha recabado gran cantidad de información sobre el desempeño de población adulta en tareas de fluencia verbal (Butman, Allegri, Harris, & Drake, 2000;Fumagalli et al, 2015) y en menor medida del rendimiento de la población infantil Fumagalli, Soriano, Shalóm, Barreyro, & Martínez-Cuitiño, 2017;Marino & Díaz-Fajreldines, 2011;Soriano, Fumagalli, Shalóm, Barreyro, & Martínez-Cuitiño, 2018) evaluando sólo una categoría semántica (animales) o dos (frutas y animales).…”