Synonyms
DFT
Historical Background
Dr. Brenda Milner is one of the most prominent pioneers for advancing the discipline in neuropsychology. In particular, her seminal research established the neuropsychological assessment of frontal lobe functioning. In collaboration with Dr. Jones-Gotman, Dr. Milner designed the design fluency test (DFT) measure analogous to the Thurston verbal fluency test. Their seminal study (Jones-Gotman and Milner 1977) documented prefrontal lobe involvement in both verbal and design fluency. Initially, the DFT was introduced as an experimental measure, and over the years, a number of neuropsychologists have contributed toward establishing the DFT as a psychometric tool.
Description
In the first part of the DFT, the participant is asked to “invent drawings” that are neither scribbles nor nameable objects or forms (e.g., geometrical shapes). During 5 min, as “many different” designs as possible are to be drawn on a blank piece of paper. During the second part, the...
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Jones-Gotman, M., & Milner, B. (1977). Design fluency: The invention of nonsense drawings after focal cortical lesions. Neuropsychologia, 15, 653–674.
Levin, H. S., Culhane, K. A., Hartmann, J., Harword, H., Ringholtz, G., Ewing-Cobbs, L., & Fletcher, J. M. (1991). Developmental changes in performance on tests of purported frontal lobe functioning. Developmental Neuropsychology, 7, 377–395.
Ross, T. P., Axelrod, B. N., Hanks, R. A., Kotasek, R. S., & Whitman, R. D. (1996). The interrater and test-retest reliability of the Design Fluency and Ruff Figural Fluency Tests. Paper presented to the 24th meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society, Chicago.
Strauss, E., Sherman, E., & Spreen, O. (2006). A compendium of neuropsychological tests (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Varney, N. R., Roberts, R. J., Struchen, M. A., Hanson, T. V., Franzen, K. M., & Connell, S. K. (1996). Design fluency among normals and patients with closed head injury. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 11, 345–353.
Woodward, J. L., Axelrod, B. N., & Henry, R. R. (1992). Interrater reliability of scoring parameters for the Design Fluency Test. Neuropsychology, 6, 173–178.
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Ruff, R. (2018). Design Fluency Test. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_1426
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_1426
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