Communication & Aging Flashcards
(10 cards)
Prevalence of hearing loss in older adults
60-70 year olds:
70+:
Older adults in nursing homes:
60-70 year olds: 37%
70+: 60%
Older adults in nursing homes: 80%
____ of language still intact
______ is most affected (still relatively intact but discourse changes evident)
_____ is mildly affected
Form (syntax, morphology, phonology)
Use (Pragmatics)
Content (Semantics)
-name retrieval is often affected (trouble w/ retrieval, or with inhibition - say wrong name)
_________is not typical characteristic of aging
Verbosity
These may maintain negative stereotypes about older adults being weak/disabled
Talk about the past
Painful self-disclosures
3 Steps to discourse comprehension
- decode spoken discourse
- extract concepts and propositions
- integrate information
The meaning of discourse is constructed w/in:
Deficits:
The limited capacity of WM (central executive!)
Issues w/ discourse comprehension, esp w/ fast rates
4 Steps to discourse production:
- Ideation
- Discourse planning (forming/organizing the message)
- Lexical selection
- Syntactic encoding and phonological production
Elderspeak definition:
form of patronizing speech w/ over accommodation to communication (based on stereotypes/beliefs about competence)
Negative effects on self-esteem
Elderspeak marked by:
- exaggerated intonation contours
- simplified grammar
- shorter sentences
- limited vocab
- more repetitions
- slower rate of speech
- diminutives/terms of endearment
Communication Predicament Model of Aging
The Enhancement Model (The solution!)
- b/c of over-accommodation based on stereotypes (e.g. elderspeak), older adults exposed to a predicament… they have to overcome barriers imposed by their conversation partners
- leads to lower self-esteem and withdrawal from interaction, which looks like “old age cues” then cycles back to the over-accommodation
*Make sure accommodations come from the NEEDS of the individual
