While past research has demonstrated that low idea density (ID) scores from natural language samples correlate with late life risk for cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease pathology, there are no published rubrics for collecting and analyzing language samples for idea density to verify or extend these findings into new settings. This paper outlines the history of ID research and findings, discusses issues with past rubrics, and then presents an operationalized method for the systematic measurement of ID in language samples, with an extensive manual available as a supplement to this article (Analysis of Idea Density, AID). Finally, reliability statistics for this rubric in the context of dementia research on aging populations and verification that AID can replicate the significant association between ID and late life cognition are presented.
Linguistic ability in young adulthood, as measured by ID, has been previously proposed as an index of neurocognitive development and/or cognitive reserve. The present study provides evidence that even when ID is measured in old age, it continues to be associated with subsequent cognitive decline and as such may continue to provide a marker of cognitive reserve.
This article examines two of the main areas of sociolinguistic research on Latinos in the USA and Canada, language maintenance and shift and Latino varieties of English, with emphasis on work that has been accomplished in the past decade. Despite the considerable amount of foundational research that has been accomplished in recent years, we suggest that a great deal remains to be done, particularly on maintenance and shift in emerging Latino communities in the USA and Canada and on Latino varieties of English.
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