Normative Data Stratified by Age and Education for Two Measures of Verbal Fluency: FAS and Animal Naming

Abstract

ormative data stratified by three levels of age (16–59, 60–79, and 80–95 years) and three levelsof education (0–8, 9–12, and 13–21 years) are presented for phonemic verbal fluency (FAS) andcategorical verbal fluency (Animal Naming). The normative sample, aged 16 to 95 years, con-sisted of 1,300 cognitively intact individuals who resided in the community. Years of educationranged from 0 to 21. The total number of words in 1 minute for each of the letters F, A, and Swas correlated r 5 .52 with the number of animal names generated in 1 minute. Regression anal-yses showed that FAS was more sensitive to the effects of education (18.6% of the variance)than age (11.0% of the variance). The opposite relationship occurred for Animal Naming,where age accounted for 23.4% of the variance and education accounted only for 13.6%. Gen-der accounted for less than 1% of variance for FAS and Animal Naming. The clinical utility ofthese norms is discussed.