Semantic Fluency in Cantonese-Speaking Adolescents from Hong Kong’s Local Secondary Schools

Semantic fluency, which requires individuals to generate words from a specific category within a limited time, offers insights into cognitive flexibility and executive functions. Semantic fluency performance typically improves during childhood and adolescence, peaks in young adulthood, and declines with age. Performance can be influenced by factors such as educational background and gender, with higher education levels and being female often linked to better fluency. However, research on semantic fluency in Cantonese-speaking adolescents is limited, with most studies focusing on total number of correct responses. This study aims to assess semantic fluency in Hong Kong adolescents by examining clustering (grouping words by subcategories) and switching (shifting between subcategories) across multiple categories. It also investigates the influence of grade, school band, and gender on fluency performance. A total of 148 Cantonese-speaking adolescents from three different secondary school grades participated in the study. Participants produced words from the categories of animals, professions, and computer room items, with one minute allotted for each category. The study analyzed the effects of category, grade, school band, and gender on total number of correct responses (TNCR), mean cluster size (MCS) and number of switches (NS). Results indicated that participants performed better in the "animals" category than other categories on all measures. The animals category likely benefited from ample prior knowledge and broader concepts, making retrieval faster and clustering more effective. Additionally, grade level had a significant impact on TNCR and NS, with Grade 5 and Grade 3 students outperforming Grade 1 students. This suggests that while semantic fluency continues to develop during adolescence, it may begin to stabilize around Grade 3. Clinically, semantic fluency tasks could serve as a tool for monitoring the development of cognitive flexibility (indicating by NS) in adolescents. Clinicians can use these tasks to identify individuals whose fluency scores diverge from typical developmental trajectories, signaling a potential need for additional support.

Lee, T. M. C., Yuen, K. S. L., & Chan, C. C. H. (2002b). Normative data for neuropsychological measures of fluency, attention, and memory measures for Hong Kong Chinese. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 24(5), 615–632.