Background: The purpose of this study was to compare the results obtained
from phonemic fluency test using “F”1
, “A”2
, “S”3
and “L”4
, “T”5
,”M”6
among
Persian Speakers aged between 20 and 30 years.
Methods: In this applied study, 76 subjects were randomly chosen. The data
was analyzed separately for each subject according to the three letters: “F”, “A”,
and “S” by using the routine phonemic fluency subtest of verbal fluency test and
then phonemic fluency performance was gathered by using the three letters:
“L”, “T” and “M” and after scoring according to Troyer method, the resultant
numbers were reported after statistical analyses. For statistical analysis using
SPSS 19, the distribution of data was firstly evaluated. Due to the fact that the
data distribution was normal, Bonferroni test was used to compare the scores of
the letters.
Results: No significant gender and educational level effects were found and
therefore, all further analyses were conducted without taking gender and
educational level into account. Also, when the results of the three letters: “F”,
“A” and “S” as a group for phonemic fluency performance and “L”, “T” and “M”
letters as a different group, were integrated, a significant difference was found
between the mean cluster size and switching between these two groups, while
there was no significant difference between the average cluster size and cluster
number.
Conclusion: Based on the findings of this research, it can be concluded that
the results of phonemic fluency test in each of the six letters are significantly
different. Therefore, when using the special letters in the Persian language, it
is necessary to examine all the letters for phonological sub-tests and use the
simplest letters to study this function