We assessed 300 healthy adults in Greece on measures of semantic and
phonemic verbal fluency in order to develop norms for the Greek
population. We also evaluated the strategies that the participants used
spontaneously in order to maximize word production, namely clustering
and switching techniques. Our tasks comprised three semantic and three
phonemic categories. Consistent with previous investigations of
English-speaking samples, we found a contribution of demographic
variables to word fluency. Specifically, level of education contributed
to total word production, number of switches, and number of repetitive
responses on both semantic and phonemic tasks, and the average cluster
size only on the phonemic task. Age contributed to total word
production and cluster size on the semantic task, and to number of
switches on both semantic and phonemic tasks. Sex contributed only to
total word production on the semantic task. In our sample, clustering
and switching strategies were related to total word production on both
tasks, suggesting that these strategies were used effectively. We
present tables of normative data stratified by age and level of
education. We have also included detailed guidelines for scoring
clusters relevant to the Greek population. (JINS, 2004,
10, 164–172.)