Qualitative analyses of verbal fluency in adolescents and young adults with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder

Abstract Systematic qualitative analyses of verbal fluency might aid our understanding of the characteristic cognitive processes in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In this study, we compared through qualitative and quantitative analyses performance on letter fluency (LF), category fluency (CF), and action fluency (AF) in adolescents and young adults with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders (HFASD) with that of an age-, gender-, and IQ-matched control group. Quantitative analyses revealed significantly fewer correct responses on category and action fluency and significantly more intrusions on category fluency in individuals with HFASD than in control participants. Qualitative analyses revealed significantly fewer semantic clusters and significantly more phonemic clusters during action fluency in individuals with HFASD compared to control participants. With respect to action fluency, the number of correct responses and clusters were related to verbal IQ for individuals with HFASD but not for control participants. We discuss these results in terms of abnormalities in semantic/phonemic strategy choice, cognitive flexibility, and generativity in ASD.