Elderspeak

Abstract

Elderspeak has been assumed to be an accommodation to the perceived communication needs of older adults as it involves a slow rate of speaking, simplified syntax, vocabulary restrictions, and exaggerated prosody. It also is judged to be patronizing and disrespectful in that its use presumes that the older adult is cognitively impaired. Using a controlled referential communication task, my colleagues and I have investigated elderspeak addressed by young adults to older adults. Our studies suggest that the speech register is composed of two sets of parameters. One set of parameters is linked to the perception that the older listener is cognitively impaired; these parameters affect how much information is conveyed and include semantic elaborations such as expansions and repetitions of previous map directions. The other set of parameters includes fluency, prosody, and grammar. The modifications to fluency and prosody do not appear to benefit older listeners. In these studies, the young adults’ use of elderspeak did improve the performance of the older listeners on the referential communication task. The use of elderspeak by the young partners appeared to trigger older adults’ perceptions of themselves as cognitively impaired, consistent with the ‘‘communicative predicament of aging’’ model of Ryan et al. (1986).