Synonyms
CFL Test; COWA; COWAT; Letter fluency; Phonemic fluency; Verbal fluency
Description
The F-A-S Test, a subtest of the Neurosensory Center Comprehensive Examination for Aphasia (NCCEA; Spreen and Benton 1977), is a measure of phonemic word fluency, which is a type of verbal fluency. It assesses phonemic fluency by requesting an individual to orally produce as many words as possible that begin with the letters F, A, and S within a prescribed time frame, usually 1 min (see Borkowski et al. 1967; Spreen and Benton 1977; Spreen and Risser 2003; Strauss et al. 2006, for specific administration instructions).
Verbal fluency is a cognitive function that facilitates information retrieval from memory. Successful retrieval requires executive control over cognitive process such as selective attention, mental set shifting, internal response generation, and self-monitoring. Tests of verbal fluency evaluate an individual’s ability to retrieve specific information within restricted search...
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References and Readings
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Patterson, J.P. (2018). F-A-S Test. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_886
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_886
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