Normative comparisons for the controlled Oral Word Association Test following acute traumatic brain injury

The Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT) is widely used in clinica l neuropsychology as a measure of verbal fluency. It is important for psych ologists to realize that using the recently published normative data will r esult in different clinical conclusions because the updated normative sampl e performed better than the original normative sample. The purpose of this study was to compare the original and updated norms in a large sample of pa tients with acute traumatic brain injuries (N=669). The percentages of pati ents who scored below the 5th centile in each system varied as a function o f brain injury severity. Moreover, a substantially larger number of patient s scored in the impaired range according to the updated normative data.