title: Phonemic fluency in Portuguese-speaking subjects in Brazil: ranking of letters.
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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, Brasil.
authors.forename: Maurien C T
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Senhorini
authors.forename: Edson
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Amaro Júnior
authors.forename: Adriana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: de Mello Ayres
authors.forename: Adriana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: de Simone
authors.forename: Geraldo F
authors.initials: GF
authors.lastname: Busatto
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001938:Brazil; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010700:Phonetics; D012016:Reference Values; D012660:Semantics; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*