Controlled Oral Word Association Test, abbreviated COWA or COWAT, is a verbal fluency test that measures spontaneous production of words belonging to the same category or beginning with some designated letter.
[1] The test was first called the "Verbal Associative Fluency Test", and then was changed to the "Controlled Word Association Test".
[2] The participant is usually asked to name words beginning with a letter, excluding proper nouns, for one minute and this procedure is repeated three times.
The most commons letters used are FAS because of their frequency in the English language.
[3] The examiner must quickly write down the words provided by the participant on a piece of paper.