Effects of Age, Gender and Education on Phonemic and Semantic Verbal Fluency. / Yas, Cinsiyet ve Egitim Düzeyinin Fonemik ve Semantik Sözel Akicilik Testi Puanlari Üzerinde Etkisi.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to obtain normative data for Verbal Fluency Test and investigate the effects of age, gender, and education on verbal fluency in native Turkish-speaking individuals. METHOD: A pilot study was conducted to determine 3 letters with differing levels of difficulty for completing the phonemic fluency task. First names and animals were chosen for the semantic fluency task, and an alternating semantic task (first name-animal) was also used. In total, 415 participants (208 male and 207 female) were recruited and stratified based on the age and education levels. RESULTS: Level of education had a main effect on all verbal fluency tasks; people with higher education performed better. Age and gender were found to have no effect on phonemic verbal fluency. Only the < name production task was affected by gender, women performed better. Younger age groups produced more words in name generation and semantic alternating fluency tasks. CONCLUSION: The effects of age, gender and education on verbal fluency are in accordance with many previous reports. Analysis of various errors were also conducted. Results for Turkish are presented and discussed in the light of literature.

PsiNorm: A fast, efficient and free open-source software for interpreting, reporting and archiving neuropsychological test results. / PsiNorm: Nöropsikolojik Test Verilerinin Degerlendirilmesi, Rapor Hazirlanmasi ve Arsivlenmesi için Hizli ve Etkin Bir Açik Yazilim.

OBJECTIVE: In many clinics, calculation and interpretation of neuropsychological test results, along with reporting, data organization and archiving of the data are done manually. In this era where most of the similar processes are automated, manual application may result in excessive time consumption, unnecessary use of qualified work-force, and is also open to error. A software that automates these processes for neuropsychological tests used for dementia assessment may overcome these issues. METHOD: We aimed to develop a free, open source software not requiring specialized training, which would optimise the calculation, preparation of personal reports and archiving processes of neuropsychological tests, hence would easily be incorporated in to the daily work of psychologists. We've used Python 3.6 as the programming language, and JSON was used as the data interchange format to allow for personal alterations in the content. The tests were selected among those which are in common use for neuropsychological evaluation of adults in Turkey, with available norm values. (Funding: TUBITAK 214S048). RESULTS: PsiNorm was developed, comprising widely used standardized tests for cognitive evaluation of adults in Turkey. The software is lightweight, compatible with most common operating systems, and easy-to-use. We've shown that Psinorm significantly reduced the time required for calculation of percentiles and norms as well as for producing a draft report. The reports are prepared in .txt format and the databases are prepared in MS Excel ve CSV formats. PsiNorm is available freely at psinorm.org. CONCLUSION: PsiNorm is a free, open-source software which is available for researchers and clinicians who perform neuropsychological tests. PsiNorm provides significant time and labor-force benefits, is easy-touse and can be customized by the user.