Discourse Behaviors in Older Adults

Abstract

An overview of the changes in older adults' comprehension of language and discourse is provided before changes in production are discussed in some detail. Age-related changes in discourse production have been studied in terms of semantic skills, syntactic complexity, verbal fragmentation, information load, cohesion, macrostructural elements, and conversation. In spite of the heterogeneity in older adults' discourse behaviors, they have a tendency to use shorter, less complex sentences and more indefinite, ambiguous references. Nevertheless, the basic conversational skills of the normally aging elderly are usually well preserved.

Microlinguistic processes that contribute to the ability to relay main events: influence of age

“…To calculate the percent information units (%IU), the following formula was used: total number of information units / total number of words (excluding unintelligible words, fillers, partial words, and commentary on the task). To determine what constituted an information unit, rules were adapted from a number of sources (Dijkstra, Bourgeois, Allen, & Burgio, 2004; Nicholas & Brookshire, 1993; Shadden, 1997; Tomoeda, Bayles, Trosset, Azuma, & McGeagh, 1996). …”

“…Similarly, Juncos-Rabadan and colleagues (2005) found the narrative samples of older participants had significantly less informational content compared to younger participants in language samples elicited from a cartoon strip story (Juncos-Rabadan et al, 2005). With respect to syntactic complexity, the general consensus in the literature confirms an age-related decline (Kemper, 1987; Marini et al, 2005; Shadden, 1997), though it appears this decline may be task dependent (Marini et al, 2005). Conversely, previous research examining lexical diversity across the lifespan indicates that lexical diversity, although also task dependent remains fairly resistant to age-related changes (Fergadiotis, Wright, & Capilouto, 2011).…”

The Main Concept Analysis: Validation and sensitivity in differentiating discourse produced by unimpaired English speakers from individuals with aphasia and dementia of Alzheimer type

“…they were equally divided into three age groups (young: below 40 years of age, middle-aged: 40-60 years, and Elderly: above 60 years), each with 10 male and 10 female participants. this was motivated by previous findings that both the quality and quantity of language production were affected by a speaker's age (58)(59)(60)(61)(62). the mean age for the three groups was 23.4, 50.1, and 68.5 years, respectively.…”

Early conversational discourse abilities following traumatic brain injury: An acute predictive study

“…The current investigation's findings that older patients were more likely to show greater impairment on conversational discourse as measured with the D-MEC confirms that age also predicts early conversational discourse sequelae. Conversational discourse in the normal elderly has been described as functional [53], yet age-related declines in grammatical complexity and prepositional content have been observed [54] and Glosser and Deser [55] found that older adults experienced difficulty maintaining coherent reference to the general topic of communication. Furthermore, several studies have shown a decrease in adequate referential skills in the older adult [56].…”

“…Furthermore, several studies have shown a decrease in adequate referential skills in the older adult [56]. Disruption at the macrostructural level of discourse is felt to be related to underlying cognitive decline [53]. It is possible that further cognitive problems post-TBI would make the elderly even more vulnerable to conversational discourse deficits.…”