Clustering and switching in unconstrained,phonemic and semantic verbal fluency: the role of age and school type |
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| Authors: | Hosana Alves Gonçalves Caroline Cargnin Geise Machado Jacobsen Renata Kochhann Yves Joanette Rochele Paz Fonseca |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology Research Group (GNCE), Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil;2. Centre de Recherche, Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Montréal, Canada |
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| Abstract: | We investigated the role of age and school type on clustering and switching in verbal fluency tasks (VFTs) with Brazilian children. The children were administered unconstrained, phonemic and semantic VFTs with a duration of 150 or 120 s, respectively. Both age and school type influenced all variables and in terms of performance over time. Older children and private school students outperformed the remainder of the sample, with the first 30 s of each VFT usually being the most productive. Although the size of the clusters produced did not differ between groups, the types of clusters did show some variations, with semantic clusters being the most frequent. Our results revealed strong correlations between switching ability and word production in all three VFTs. In conclusion, the executive functions known as planning and cognitive flexibility play a crucial role in word production by organising and facilitating the recall of lexical information from memory. |
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| Keywords: | Neurodevelopment executive function verbal fluency tasks clustering and switching age and type of school |
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