Number of errors for an individual letter, as part of Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT)

Ages 6-69. Two normative samples are used: individuals ages 16-69 years and children ages 6-12 years.

Copyright PEARSON. Benton, AL. (1967). Problems of test construction in the field of aphasia. Cortex (3):32-58. Subtest of Benton AL, Hamsher KS, Sivan AB. Multilingual Aphasia Examination, Third Edition (MAE). Psychological Assessment Resources, 1994.

Allow one minute for each letter. Record the number of incorrect words (e.g. begin with the in-correct letter or belong in the wrong category). Then count all errors for all letters/categories. Proper nouns (i.e.. names of people, states, etc.) are not acceptable. Changing the ending of words (i.e.. thirty-one, thirty-two) is not acceptable. Scoring: Do not give credit for using the same word with minor variations in the ending. If a subject gives the same word with different endings, such as care, cares, caring, count the first word as correct, and ignore the other variations on the same word. Variations on the same word are simply ignored- they do not count as errors. This rule applies only to suffixes that change the tense of a verb or change a word from singular to plural, but do not significantly alter the meaning of the word. It does not apply to words with a common root but different meanings, such as art, artful, artisan, artless. It also does not apply to words that change pronunciation such as mouse, mice.

Errors number