Abstract
ABSTRACT.Given the sociodemographic diversity in Brazil, it is fundamental to understand the speech performance of a sample from the Brazilian capital. The repetition task can assess phonological and motor-phonetic planning. Previous studies found phonological-phonetic performance of speakers to be associated with education, age, and other demographic factors. Objectives: To compare the phonetic-phonological performance for speech of younger and aged adults in the capital of Brazil, Federal District (FD); to compare FD performance against national normative means based on São Paulo; to determine the association of phonetic-phonological agility with sociodemographic, cognitive, and neuropsychiatric variables for the sample. Methods: Cross-sectional study. A total of 60 volunteers from the FD, comprising 30 older adults and 30 younger ones, were stratified by education into two subgroups: 2‒7 years and ≥8 years of education. Data on age, educational level, and socioeconomic status were collected. The Verbal Agility subtest of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination was applied to assess phonetic-phonological performance. Results: No statistically significant difference in performance for verbal agility was found between aged and younger adults from the FD. There was a statistically significant difference in the phonetic-phonological performance of the FD sample compared with the Brazilian normative mean values. Cognitive and socioeconomic variables were associated with verbal agility. Conclusions: In the capital of Brazil, economic status, age, education, and cognitive variables were associated with verbal agility performance, despite there being no difference in phonetic-phonological performance between younger and aged adult groups. Regional differences in phonetic-phonological performance were also evident.
Highlights
According to population projections by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the proportion of elderly in the country’s capital city, the Federal District (FD), is set to rise from 11% in 2019 to 33% by 2060.1 In view of the growing elderly population and consequent prioritizing of promotion and prevention of elderly health, enshrined in Law 8.842 of 1994,2 understanding the changes associated with the aging process is paramount.Phonological working memory abilities decline with age.[3]
Mean age of the older adults was 66.8 (4.6) years and younger adults was 28.7 (7.9) years; mean education was 7.6 (3.7) years and 8.2 (4.1) years; mean time residing in the FD was 47.6 (9.5) years and 24.0 (7.5) years; Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) score was 1.5 (2.0) and 2.9 (2.3); and Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) score was 26.2 (0.2) and 26.6 (0.8), respectively
The main finding of this study was that there was no statistically significant difference in phonetic-phonological performance between younger and aged adults from the FD — capital of Brazil (Table 1), but the performance of the FD sample was worse than the normative national mean, derived from São Paulo (SP) data (Table 2)
Summary
Phonological working memory abilities decline with age.[3] high-educated Brazilian elderly have shown better cognitive performance[4] and motor speed has predicted deficits in the cognition of individuals with neuropsychiatric disorders,[5] suggesting a relationship between cognitive-communicative performance and sociodemographic and neuropsychiatric characteristics. Phonological planning is a linguistic-symbolic function responsible for the sequential selection and combination of phonemes, while phonetic-motor planning is responsible for transforming phonemes into action, a strategy for the motor target.[6] The repetition task can assess both phonological and motor-phonetic speech planning These communication processing stages can be assessed by the verbal agility subtest from the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE).[7] In this subtest, the performance of speakers of Brazilian Portuguese and English was found to be associated with education.[8,9] in contrast to a North American study,[8] no statistically significant difference in verbal agility was found between different age groups in a Brazilian study.[9]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
