title: Phonemic verbal fluency and severity of anxiety disorders in young children.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Previous studies have implicated impaired verbal fluency as being associated with anxiety disorders in adolescents.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To replicate and extend previously reported evidence by investigating whether performance in phonemic verbal fluency tasks is related to severity of anxiety symptoms in young children with anxiety disorders. We also aim to investigate whether putative associations are independent from co-occurring attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms.
  
  
  METHODS
  Sixty children (6-12 years old) with primary diagnoses of anxiety disorders participated in this study. Severity of symptoms was measured using clinician-based, parent-rated and self-rated validated scales. Verbal fluency was assessed using a simple task that measures the number of words evoked in 1-minute with the letter F, from which we quantified the number of isolated words, number of clusters (groups of similar words) and number of switches (transitions between clusters and/or between isolated words).
  
  
  RESULTS
  There was a significant association between the number of clusters and anxiety scores. Further analysis revealed associations were independent from co-occurring ADHD symptoms.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We replicate and extend previous findings showing that verbal fluency is consistently associated with severity in anxiety disorders in children. Further studies should explore the potential effect of cognitive training on symptoms of anxiety disorders.
authors.affiliation: Programa de Transtornos de Ansiedade na Infância e Adolescência (PROTAIA), Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre (HCPA), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.|Programa de Pós-Graduação em Neurociências, Instituto de Ciências Básicas da Saúde (ICBS), UFRGS, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Rudineia
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Toazza
authors.affiliation: Programa de Transtornos de Ansiedade na Infância e Adolescência (PROTAIA), Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre (HCPA), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.|Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Médicas: Psiquiatria, HCPA, UFRGS, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Giovanni Abrahão
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Salum
authors.affiliation: Programa de Transtornos de Ansiedade na Infância e Adolescência (PROTAIA), Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre (HCPA), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.|Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Médicas: Psiquiatria, HCPA, UFRGS, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Rafaela Behs
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Jarros
authors.affiliation: Programa de Transtornos de Ansiedade na Infância e Adolescência (PROTAIA), Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre (HCPA), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.|Programa de Pós-Graduação em Psicologia, UFRGS, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Diogo
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: DeSousa
authors.affiliation: Programa de Pós-Graduação em Psicologia, UFRGS, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.|Núcleo de Estudos em Neuropsicologia Cognitiva (NEUROCOG), Departamento de Psicologia do Desenvolvimento e da Personalidade, Instituto de Psicologia, UFRGS, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Jerusa Fumagalli de
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Salles
authors.affiliation: Programa de Transtornos de Ansiedade na Infância e Adolescência (PROTAIA), Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre (HCPA), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.|Programa de Pós-Graduação em Neurociências, Instituto de Ciências Básicas da Saúde (ICBS), UFRGS, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.|Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Médicas: Psiquiatria, HCPA, UFRGS, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Gisele Gus
authors.initials: GG
authors.lastname: Manfro
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000150:complications; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013060:Speech; D013068:Speech Production Measurement