Phonological and Semantic verbal fluency tasks in a sample of Argentinean children

MARTÍNEZ CUITIÑO, M; SORIANO, F; BARREYRO, J. P.; FUMAGALLI, J; BARREYRO, J. P.; FUMAGALLI, J; SHALOM, D; SHALOM, D; MARTÍNEZ CUITIÑO, M; SORIANO, F

TEMAS DE PSICOLOGIA

Sociedade Brasileira de Psicologia

Año: 2017 vol. 25 p. 995 - 1005

2358-1883

The aim of this work is to obtain data about the evolutionary pattern of performance in verbal fluency tasks for a sample of Argentinean primary school-aged children (3rd, 5th and 7th grade) in semantic and phonological verbal fluency tasks. For the semantic fluency task, children were assessed in different categories: animals, fruits and vegetables, and body parts for the living things domain, and means of transport, musical instruments and clothes for inanimate objects. For the phonological fluency assessment, children were tested with the /f/, /a/ and /s/ phonemes. Both fluency tasks showed differences between grades, indicating the influence of education. Besides, irrespective of the grade, children performed better on the semantic fluency tasks. Results in the semantic fluency task also showed a better performance for the living things domain over the inanimate objects domain. Further analysis on the results showed that 3rd grade children have the worst performance, compared to 5th and 7th grade children. The results of our work are discussed taking in account cognitive mechanisms, executive functions and semantic memory development.