Word finding difficulty is a known impairments in multiple sclerosis (MS). The purpose of this
study is to adapt homophone meaning generation test to Persian language, and then examine word
storage and access in multiple sclerosis patients through these three word-finding tests. This study
examined the word retrieval in 90 Persian speaking patients with multiple sclerosis and 90 matched
healthy controls through three tasks: semantic fluency, phonemic fluency, and homophonic meaning
generation. The Persian homophone meaning generation test had a strong convergent validity with
semantic and phonemic switching and an adequate divergent validity with semantic and phonemic
clustering. There was a significant difference between two groups in all three tests (p<0.001) except
semantic and phonetic clustering (p≥ 0.05). Multiple sclerosis is a disease affecting word access, but
not the word storage, and Persian homophone meaning generation test is an appropriate, valid, and
reliable test to evaluate word-finding difficulties in this population.
HMGT