Abstract
The Ruff Figural Fluency Test (RFFT) was developed to avoid the difficulties that were encountered in earlier tests of figural fluency. Although the test characteristics of the RFFT seem to be good and it is a valuable addition to neuropsychological assessments, reference data are still scarce. To this aim, we required 2,404 community dwelling persons in Groningen, the Netherlands to perform the RFFT. All 1,651 persons with a complete RFFT and known educational level formed the reference sample. Their age ranged from 35 to 82 years and their educational level from primary school to university grade. Ninety-six percent of the persons were of Western European descent. All tests were analyzed by two independent examiners and subsequently three measures were calculated: number of unique designs, number of perseverative errors and error ratio. The main finding was that performance on the RFFT was dependent on age and educational level. This was not only observed in older persons but also in young and middle-aged persons. Reference data for the three RFFT measures are presented in groups of five years of age ranging from 35–39 years to 75 years or older.
Highlights
Executive functions are higher order cognitive processes that encompass skills necessary for purposeful, goal-directed behavior and are essential to the ability to respond to novel and unfamiliar situations [1,2]
Persons are required to produce as many words beginning with a specific letter or to name as many objects belonging to a specific category as possible within limited time
We present reference data for the Ruff Figural Fluency Test (RFFT)
Summary
Executive functions are higher order cognitive processes that encompass skills necessary for purposeful, goal-directed behavior and are essential to the ability to respond to novel and unfamiliar situations [1,2]. As fluency tests are one type of test that consistently show defective performance in those with frontal lobe lesions [3], fluency tests are commonly used in clinical care to evaluate executive functions. Persons are required to produce as many words beginning with a specific letter or to name as many objects belonging to a specific category as possible within limited time. Persons are required to generate as many nonsense drawings or figures as possible within limited time [5]. The Design Fluency Test and the Five-Point Test are well known examples of figural fluency tests [6,7]. These early tests have, some important disadvantages. The FivePoint Test has a relatively small scoring range due to which the test suffers from a ceiling effect and has a low sensitivity for subtle changes
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