Verbal (animal) fluency scores in age/grade appropriate minority children from low socioeconomic backgrounds

Abstract

Two hundred-thirteen children in grades 1 through 8 were asked to rapidly generate as many names of animals as they could in 60 seconds. These children were age appropriate for their grade level in school, did not receive any form of special education services, and as a group showed (estimated) average intellectual ability. They were primarily from minority (particularly Hispanic) backgrounds and came from families with low socioeconomic status. Normative data are presented. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that the age range0grade level score accounted for 21.5% of the variability in fluency scores and the Vocabulary level of the child accounted for an additional 5.7%. Level of performance on this animal fluency task was not lower than what has been reported in primarily white children from middle socioeconomic backgrounds. (JINS, 2008, 14, 143-147.)

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

“…Similarly, this pattern has been widely reported in other normative data studies of the same tests among children and adolescents (e.g., Beltrán Dulcey & Solís-Uribe, 2012;García et al, 2012;Lozano & Ostrosky-Solís, 2006;Malloy-Diniz et al, 2007;Martins et al, 2016;Nieto et al, 2008;Prigatano et al, 2008;Ruffieux et al, 2009;Tallberg et al, 2011;Van der Elst et al, 2011).…”

“…Girls generally scored better on these tests compared to boys, with the exception of the animal's category in Chile where boys performed better than girls. Studies in adult samples indicate differences in gender depending on the category used during the semantic VFT (Acevedo et al, 2000, Egeland, Landrø, Tjemsland, & Walbaekken, 2006Peña-Casanova et al, 2009;Prigatano et al, 2008;Van Der Elst, Van Boxtel, Van Breukelen, & Jolles, 2006); however, most studies with children have not reported gender differences in phonological or semantic verbal fluency (Lozano & Ostrosky-Solís, 2006;Malloy-Diniz et al, 2007;Nieto et al, 2008;Riva et al, 2000;Ruffieux et al, 2009;Tallberg et al, 2011;Van der Elst, et al, 2011).…”

“…Several variables have been associated with performance on VFT, but in the case of children and adolescents, the most significant variable is age (Beltrán Dulcey & Solís-Uribe, 2012;García et al, 2012;Lozano & Ostrosky-Solís, 2006;Malloy-Diniz et al, 2007;Martins, Mograbi, Andrade Gabrig, & Charchat-Fichman, 2016;Nieto, Galtier, Barroso, & Espinosa, 2008;Prigatano, Gray, & Lomay, 2008;Ruffieux et al, 2009;Tallberg, Carlsson, & Lieberman, 2011;Van der Elst, Hurks, Wassenberg, Meijs, & Jolles, 2011). Past research has consistently found that older children perform better on VFT.…”

“…Because VFT are widely used and highly useful, researchers have strived to provide normative data for children and adolescents between the ages of 6 and 20 years in countries such as Brazil (Malloy-Diniz et al, 2007;Martins et al, 2016), United States of America (Prigatano et al 2008), Cameroon (Ruffieux et al, 2009), Sweden (Tallberg et al, 2011), andHolland (Van der Elst et al, 2011). Among Spanish-speaking countries, normative data for children has been collected in Spain (García et al, 2012;Nieto et al, 2008), Colombia (Beltrán Dulcey & Solís-Uribe, 2012), Argentina (Butman, Allegri, Harris, & Drake, 2000; Marino & Alderete, 2010), and Mexico (Lozano & Ostrosky-Solís, 2006).…”

“…Most of normative data studies focus solely on the semantic VFT as described above, using categories such as animals (Butman et al, 2000;García et al, 2012;Lozano & Ostrosky-Solís, 2006;MalloyDiniz et al, 2007;Marino & Alderete, 2010;Martins et al, 2016;Nieto et al, 2008;Prigatano et al, 2008;Ruffieux et al, 2009;Tallberg et al, 2011;Van der Elst et al, 2011), fruits (Martins et al, 2016), clothing (Marino & Alderete, 2010;Martins et al, 2016), tools (Marino & Alderete, 2010), parts of the body (Malloy-Diniz et al, 2007), and food (Malloy-Diniz et al, 2007), all of which are appropriate for children. Among studies that have employed the phonological VFT, most opted for the classic letters (i.e., F, A, and S), although in some cases, especially in Spanishspeaking samples, letters such as P and M have been used (Butman et al, 2000;García et al, 2012;Marino & Alderete, 2010;Martins et al, 2016;Nieto et al, 2008).…”