Phonemic fluency in Portuguese-speaking subjects in Brazil: ranking of letters.
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.
Senhorini
Maurien C T
MC
Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, Brasil.
Amaro Júnior
Edson
E
de Mello Ayres
Adriana
A
de Simone
Adriana
A
Busatto
Geraldo F
GF
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*