Language Flashcards

On the MoCA, the fluency task asks the patient to name as many words as possible beginning with a specific letter in one minute. Which letter is used?

Answer: F

The MoCA phonemic fluency task uses the letter F, asking patients to generate words starting with that letter in 60 seconds.

How many words must a patient correctly name in the MoCA letter fluency task to earn the full point?

Answer: 11 or more

Patients must produce 11 or more correct words starting with the letter F in 60 seconds to score 1 point on MoCA fluency.

In the MoCA naming task, which type of animals are presented as line drawings for identification?

Answer: Low-familiarity animals

The MoCA uses line drawings of less common animals (lion, camel, rhinoceros) to test confrontational naming with low-familiarity stimuli.

A patient names a lion correctly but calls the camel a 'horse.' What does this error pattern suggest clinically?

Answer: Possible semantic paraphasia or mild anomia

Substituting a different animal name suggests semantic paraphasia or word-retrieval difficulty, both indicators of possible language impairment.

On the MoCA repetition task, sentences are read aloud and the patient must repeat them verbatim. How many sentences are presented?

Answer: 2

Two sentences of increasing grammatical complexity are read aloud, and the patient must repeat each one exactly for credit.

Which MoCA repetition sentence tests more complex syntactic processing?

Answer: 'The cat always hid under the couch when dogs were in the room.'

The longer sentence with a subordinate clause ('when dogs were in the room') demands greater syntactic processing and working memory.

If a patient omits one word from a MoCA repetition sentence, how is this scored?

Answer: No point is awarded for that sentence

The MoCA requires verbatim repetition; any omission, substitution, or addition results in no point for that sentence.