Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-jr42d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T02:57:54.658Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The effects of practicing speech accommodations to older adults

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Susan Kemper ,
Meghan Othick ,
Hope Gerhing ,
Julia Gubarchuk  and
Catherine Billington
Susan Kemper*
Affiliation:
University of Kansas
Meghan Othick
Affiliation:
University of Kansas
Hope Gerhing
Affiliation:
University of Kansas
Julia Gubarchuk
Affiliation:
University of Kansas
Catherine Billington
Affiliation:
University of Kansas
*
426 Fraser, Psychology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study evaluated the effects of practice with a referential communication task on the form and effectiveness of elderspeak, a speech register targeted at older listeners. The task required the listener to reproduce a route drawn on a map following the speaker's instructions. Young adults were given extended practice with this task to determine if they would modify their fluency, prosody, grammatical complexity, semantic content, or discourse style. The effectiveness of the young speakers' instructions was also evaluated in terms of how accurately their older partners could reproduce the routes and in terms of the older adults' evaluations of their own communicative competence. With practice, the young adults' instructions became shorter, simpler, slower, and more repetitious; these selective changes did not affect the older adults' accuracy, but did result in lower self-ratings of communicative competence by the older partners. In a second study, a new group of young adults was given extended practice with young adults as partners. The practice effects were limited to fluency (sentence length and speech rate) and had no effect on the young partners' accuracy or selfratings of communicative competence.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , April 1998 , pp. 175 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ashburn, G., & Gordon, A. (1981). Features of a simplified register in speech to elderly conversa- tionalists. International Journal of Psycholinguistics, 7, 31–43.Google Scholar
AVAAZ Innovations. (1995). Computerized Speech Research Environment 4.2 [computer software]. London, Ontario: Sound Scientific Solutions.Google Scholar
Caporael, L. (1981). The paralanguage of caregiving: Baby talk to the institutionalized aged. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 876–884.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caporael, L. R., & Culbertson, G. H. (1986). Verbal response modes of baby talk and other speech at institutions for the aged. Language and Communication, 6, 99–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caporael, L. R., Lukaszewski, M. P., & Culbertson, G. H. (1983). Secondary babytalk: Judgments of institutionalized elderly and their caregivers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychol- ogy. 44, 746–754.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chapman, R., & Miller, J. (1984). SALT: Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts. Madison: University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Edwards, H., & Noller, P. (1993). Perceptions of overaccommodations used by nurses in communi-cation with the elderly. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 12, 207–223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibb, H., & O'Brien, B. (1990). Jokes and reassurances are not enough: Ways in which nurses related through conversation with elderly clients. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 15, 1389–1401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gubrium, J. F. (1975). Living and dying at Murray Manor. New York: St. Martin's.Google Scholar
Harwood, J., Giles, H., & Ryan, E. B. (1995). Aging, communication, and intergroup therapy: Social identity and intergenerational communication. In Nussbaum, J. & Coupland, J. (eds.), Handbook of communication and aging (pp. 133–159). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Kemper, S. (1992). Language and aging. In Craik, F. I. M. & Salthouse, T. A. (eds.), Handbook of aging and cognition (pp. 213–270). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Kemper, S. (1994). “Elderspeak”: Speech accommodations to older adults. Aging and Cognition, 1, 1–10.Google Scholar
Kemper, S., Anagnopoulos, C, Lyons, K., & Heberlein, W. (1994). Speech accommodations to dementia. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 49, P223–230.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kemper, S., Othick, M., Warren, J., Gubarchuk, J., & Gerhing, H. (1996). Facilitating older adults’ performance on a referential communication task through speech accommodations. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 3, 37–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kemper, S., Vandeputte, D., Rice, K., Cheung, H., & Gubarchuk, J. (1995). Speech adjustments to aging during a referential communication task. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 14, 40–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kintsch, W., & Keenan, J. M. (1973). Reading rate and retention as a function of the number of the propositions in the base structure of sentences. Cognitive Psychology, 5, 257–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lanceley, A. (1985). Use of controlling language in the rehabilitation of the elderly. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 10, 125–135.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Molfese, V. J., Hoffman, S., & Yuen, R. (1981–1982). The influence of setting and task partner on the performance of adults over 65 on a communication task. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 14, 45–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Connor, B. P., & Rigby, H. (1996). Perceptions of baby talk, frequency of receiving baby talk, and self-esteem among community and nursing home residents. Psychology and Aging, 11, 147–154.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rubin, K. H., & Brown, I. D. R. (1975). A life-span look at person perception and its relationship to communicative interaction. Journal of Gerontology, 30, 461–468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryan, E. B., Bourhis, R. Y., & Knops, U. (1991). Evaluative perceptions of patronizing speech addressed to elders. Psychology and Aging, 6, 442–450.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ryan, E. B., Giles, H., Bartolucci, G., & Henwood, K. (1986). Psycholinguistic and social psychological components of communication by and with the elderly. Language and Communication, 6, 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryan, E. B., Hamilton, J. M., & Kwong See, S. (1994). Younger and older adult listeners’ evalua- tions of baby talk addressed to institutionalized elders. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 39, 21–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryan, E. B., Hummert, M. L., & Boich, L. H. (1995). Communication predicaments of aging: Patronizing behavior toward older adults. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 14, 144–166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryan, E. B., Kwong See, S. K., Meneer, W. B., & Trovato, D. (1992). Age-based perceptions of language performance among younger and older adults. Communication Research; 19, 423–443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryan, E. B., MacLean, M., & Orange, J. B. (1994). Inappropriate accommodation in communication to elders: Inferences about nonverbal correlates. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 39, 273–291.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shipley, W. C. (1940). A self-administered scale for measuring intellectual impairment and deterio-ration. Journal of Psychology, 9, 371–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warren, A., & McCloskey, L. A. (1997). Language in social contexts. In Gleason, J. Berko (Ed.), The development of language (4th ed., pp. 210–258). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar