Use of Elderspeak by Young and Older Adults to Impaired and Unimpaired Listeners

Abstract

This study examined the use of elderspeak, a speech register targeted at older listeners, by young and older adults. A simulation paradigm was used: The participants were asked to provide a set of instructions for navigating a route drawn on a map and they were given photographs and short biographical descriptions of listeners who were described either as healthy, active adults living independently or as older adults who were experiencing cognitive problems including memory lapses, disorientation, and failing to recognize family members. The fluency, prosody, grammatical complexity, semantic content, and discourse style of the instructions were compared. In addition, the participants were asked to rate the appropriateness of various speech accommodations, such as using long sentences, exaggerated intonation, and repetition, for the listeners. The results indicated that both young and older adults rated the speech accommodations as appropriate for use with cognitively impaired older adults. The young adults actually used such speech accommodations in response to the referential communication task whereas the older adults adopted a more limited range of speech accommodations for the impaired listeners.