Phonemic fluency in Portuguese-speaking subjects in Brazil: ranking of letters

J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 2006 Oct;28(7):1191-200. doi: 10.1080/13803390500350969.

Abstract

Phonological verbal fluency studies in English most commonly employ the letters F-A-S as stimuli. We assessed the production of words with these and 14 other letters in Portuguese-speaking healthy subjects (n = 74). The letters F-A-S were ranked among the easiest to produce words in one minute, which is consistent with the findings of studies with English-speaking subjects. There were differences in the overall ranking of letters depending on whether the total word number or the latency between words were considered. Our findings provide a databank of phonological verbal fluency performance using different stimuli in Portuguese, and demonstrate that the ranking of the letters F-A-S is comparable between the English and Portuguese languages in terms of the level of difficulty to produce words, when the task is used in its traditional format.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Brazil
  • Cognition / physiology*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Language Tests / statistics & numerical data*
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Phonetics*
  • Reference Values
  • Semantics
  • Verbal Behavior / physiology*