Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT)
What It Measures
The Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT) is a verbal fluency task. The examiner names a letter and the person has 60 seconds to say as many words starting with that letter as they can. The procedure repeats for two more letters, and the score is simply the total number of acceptable words.
It looks like a language test, and it is one — but performance depends just as much on executive function: generating a search strategy, holding the rules in mind, and not repeating yourself. Proper nouns and repeated words do not count. Scores are compared against norms adjusted for age, sex, and education, because education in particular has a strong effect on how many words a person produces.
Further Reading
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: The COWAT is a subtest of the Multilingual Aphasia Examination, Third Edition (Benton, Hamsher, Rey & Sivan, 1994), published by PAR and eProvide. Reproduction requires publisher permission.
