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Kent-Rosanoff Word Association Test: Aged Twins With and Without Dementia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Louise G. Bettner ,
June E. Blum  and
Lissy F. Jarvik
Louise G. Bettner
Affiliation:
Eden Mental Health Clinic, Alameda County, San Leandro, California
June E. Blum
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Cornell University Medical College, New York
Lissy F. Jarvik*
Affiliation:
Brentwood Veterans Administration Medical Center and Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA, Los Angeles, California
*
530/151E Brentwood VA Medical Center, 11301 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90073

Abstract

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As part of a long-range study on mental functioning in old age, 53 twins (mean age 84 years) were given the Kent-Rosanoff Word Association test, a test which measures the cognitive ability to give discrete verbal association to common stimulus words. In general, the results obtained with the aging twins were similar to those previously reported for young adults tested in the early 20th century, nearly 90% of the responses being found in the 1910 Kent-Rosanoff norm tables. Our results are consistent with the trend reported in the literature toward diminished primary responses with advancing age. Unlike reports in the literature, however, the present study detected no sex differences, possibly due to the small sample size (18 men and 35 women). Moreover, Kent-Rosanoff performance was not significantly related to organic brain syndrome, as measured by psychiatric evaluation, Graham-Kendall Memory-for-Designs test, and Stroop-Color-Word test, possibly because most of the twins were diagnosed as having only a “mild” or “moderate” degree of impairment. The intraclass correlations were higher for MZ than DZ twin partners, the differences reaching statistical significance for two scoring categories, primary and unusual responses. Even though the sample was small, only six DZ and 12 MZ pairs, this finding suggests a possible hereditary component in the verbal associative behavior of octogenarians.

Keywords

AgingKent-Rosanoff word association testDementiaTwins
Type
Research Article
Information
Acta geneticae medicae et gemellologiae: twin research , Volume 31 , Issue 1-2 , January 1982 , pp. 1 - 7
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Twin Studies 1982

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