Programa de Pós-Graduação em Psicologia, Instituto de Psicologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
Departamento de Psicometria, Instituto de Psicologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
Child Neuropsychol. 2022 Nov;28(8):1031-1051. doi: 10.1080/09297049.2022.2042502. Epub 2022 Feb 28.
Despite the widespread use of verbal fluency (VF) tasks in child neuropsychological research and clinical practice, the contribution of executive and linguistic processes to variability in children's fluency performance is still unclear. This is particularly important when considering the development of orthographic knowledge and semantic network during childhood. The present study investigated the contributions of executive functions and linguistic skills to performance in VF tasks in children. We examined the contributions of basic executive functions (i.e.,inhibitory control, working memory, and flexibility) and high-order executive functions (i.e., planning), vocabulary, lexical access speed, and phonological awareness to VF performance in 111 typically developing children (8-10 years old). Multiple regression analyses showed that phonological awareness was a predictor of performance in phonemic verbal fluency (PVF), and lexical access speed was the best predictor of performance in semantic verbal fluency (SVF). Among the executive function components, working memory was a predictor of performance in PVF and most categories of SVF (except animal fluency). In addition to working memory resources (i.e., a basic executive function), planning (i.e., a high-level executive function) was also recruited in the clothing category of SVF. These results highlight the importance of phonological processing skills in children's performance on VF tasks and show similarities and differences in the contributions of various linguistic and executive skills to PVF and SVF. These findings have implications for interpreting the results of these measures in research and clinical practice.
尽管言语流畅性（VF）任务在儿童神经心理学研究和临床实践中得到了广泛应用，但执行功能和语言过程对儿童流畅性表现变异性的贡献仍不清楚。当考虑儿童时期正字法知识和语义网络的发展时，这一点尤为重要。本研究探讨了执行功能和语言技能对儿童 VF 任务表现的贡献。我们考察了基本执行功能（即抑制控制、工作记忆和灵活性）和高阶执行功能（即计划）、词汇、词汇访问速度和语音意识对 111 名典型发展儿童（8-10 岁）VF 表现的贡献。多元回归分析表明，语音意识是语音流畅性（PVF）表现的预测因素，词汇访问速度是语义流畅性（SVF）表现的最佳预测因素。在执行功能成分中，工作记忆是 PVF 和大多数 SVF 类别（动物流畅性除外）表现的预测因素。除了工作记忆资源（即基本执行功能）外，计划（即高级执行功能）也被招募到 SVF 的服装类别中。这些结果强调了语音处理技能在儿童 VF 任务表现中的重要性，并展示了各种语言和执行技能对 PVF 和 SVF 的贡献的相似性和差异。这些发现对解释这些测量在研究和临床实践中的结果具有启示意义。
