E-ISSN : 2733-4538
The Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT) is a generative naming test that consists of the category (semantic) fluency test and letter (phonemic) fluency test. It has been reported that the COWAT is very sensitive to the frontal lobe damage (Vilkki & Holst, 1994). Recently, the COWAT has been widely used in the elderly population for differentiating the demented elderly from healthy ones in Korea as well as in western countries. The purpose of this study is to get a normative data of the Korean version of COWAT in the elderly. The Korean version of COWAT including the categories of "animal" and "supermarket list" and the letters of "ㄱ, ㅇ, ㅅ," was administered to 451 healthy elderly ranging in age from 55 to 80. The effects of age, educational level, and sex were found in the performance of the category fluency test, whereas age and education level, but not sex, were found to be significant factors affecting the performance of the letter fluency test. The subjects committed very few perseveration and intrusion errors in both tests. The norms broken down by age, education level, and sex for each test were presented.