THE SEMANTIC ASSOCIATION TEST FOR ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE: A PSYCHOMETRIC EVALUATION

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is an identifiable difference between patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and healthy controls on a semantic association task (SAT). The task was to investigate this newly developed assessment tool by comparing performance of healthy controls with patients diagnosed with AD. Thirty controls completed a short battery of standardized assessments and the SAT. Twenty-four AD participants were included as retrospective data from previous neuropsychological testing. Our predictions involved performance between groups on various aspects of the semantic categories within the SAT. Results indicated several significant differences supporting most of the original predictions. We measured convergent validity with two commonly used assessments, the Boston Naming Test and Semantic Fluency and found significant correlations. Further analyses conducted to analyzing group differences in spreading activation. Results indicated significant differences between the groups in the spread of activation associated with correct items on the SAT.