Semantic verbal fluency in aphasia: A quantitative and qualitative study in test-retest conditions

Abstract

Abstract A semantic verbal fluency test (animals, food, clothing) was administered twice, 6 weeks apart, to two groups of subjects, one recently aphasic (n = 17), the other chronically aphasic (n = 16). Performance was assessed using both quantitative (total correct) and qualitative (errors and organization of responses) methods. A MANOVA using total correct as the dependent variable found an expected main effect for Group and an unanticipated effect for Visit, with both groups improving on retesting. Other analyses showed significant correlations between verbal fluency performance and severity of aphasia for both groups. In qualitative analysis, for both groups, the number of total correct words was negatively correlated with the number of errors, and positively with the number of semantic subgroupings. Since the finding of improvement in the chronic group cannot be readily explained, this suggests a need for caution in the clinical use of semantic verbal fluency tests to measure improvement.