title: Component analysis of verbal fluency performance in younger participants with moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate phonemic and semantic verbal fluency performance in a group of young adult participants with and without traumatic brain injury.
  
  
  METHODS
  Group comparison.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty-five participants with moderate-to-severe TBI and 25 participants with no brain damage (NBD) were given phonemic and semantic verbal fluency tasks. Responses were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Young participants with moderate-to-severe TBI generated significantly fewer total correct words and sub-categories for both fluency conditions when compared to controls. The total number of correct words generated on the phonemic condition and for the semantic category of animals was positively correlated with the number of category switches produced during the task.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  While young participants with moderate-to-severe TBI produced fewer total correct words on both verbal fluency conditions in comparison to controls, these differences were greater on the phonemic condition. Participants with moderate-to-severe TBI switched less frequently on both fluency tasks and produced smaller cluster sizes only on the phonemic task in comparison to controls. These results are in contrast with previous investigations that have observed greater age-related declines on semantic tasks when compared to phonemic tasks.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Longwood University , Farmville, VA , USA and.
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cralidis
authors.forename: Kristine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lundgren
mesh_terms: D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010700:Phonetics; D012660:Semantics; D015599:Trauma Severity Indices; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult