Language, health and aging: notes I

1. Language, health and aging: notes I Course Description: Should we use or avoid a simplified speech register (Elderspeak) when speaking to older people? What are the changes in our language as we age? This class gives an overview of the literature on language and aging, including impaired language, with a focus on enhancing communication as part of caregiving. The first half of the course will be face-to-face; the second half will be online, when you will partner (via CENTRA) with students in Taiwan who are taking a similar course. Cross-listed with Gerontology, this course also fulfills cross-cultural competencies. Spring, 2006

2. The importance of communication L.Worrall & L. Hickson. 2003. Communication disability in aging. Delmar, p. 12

3. How older adults use language L.Worrall & L. Hickson. 2003. Communication disability in aging. Delmar, p. 140

4. Speech/language: early development • By 3-4 years • Integration of content, form, use • By 5-6 years • Knows the language • By 9 years • Complex messages • Normal aging • Few changes in speech & language http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/development/language_development.shtml

5. Pre-school: language in use • Birth to 2: Parents’ reactions to non-intentional communication lead to • Intentional communication • Joint attention • At 3: independent communication • beginning of narration, with descriptions • By 4 and 5, speaker adds • setting, • & rehearsal of action See works by Katharine Nelson and by Robin Fivush

6. Starting school • Can sustain longer conversations • Knows how to handle shifting topics shifting styles • Uses different genres (adds literacy) • Begins to use language of persuasion and negotiation Nelson, Fivush, and a run through PsychInfo

7. The adult speaker • Integrated content, form and use • Discourse incorporates • Persuasion • Argument • Narration • Pragmatics crucial for social interaction Try this quiz http://www.learner.org/discoveringpsychology/18/e18expand.html

8. Pragmatics: how to do things with words Rules for situational use of language • What to say when • Greetings and similar routines • Turn-taking • Interruptions and overlaps • How to say something • And when not to say it Start here: http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/pragmatics.htm

9. Communication and Aging: Chapter 1 The life span perspective • process - do adults think differently? (This is what came to the centre of Knowles’ theory of andragogy: In pedagogy, the concern is with transmitting the content, while in andragogy, the concern is with facilitating the acquisition of the content.) • situations - do adults find themselves in different circumstances to other age groups? • experiences - does the accumulation of experience change things? What difference does having been through a greater range of things make? Nussbaum et al, Ch 1

10. Stages in adulthood • Middle adulthood: age forty to sixty-five  • Midlife transition-forty to forty-five • Entering middle adulthood-forty-five to fifty • Age fifty transition-fifty to fifty-five • Culmination of middle adulthood-fifty-five to sixty • Late adulthood: age sixty on • Late adult transition-sixty to sixty-five L.Worrall & L. Hickson. 2003. Communication disability in aging

11. language strategies • Support maintenance of identity and place in the larger world • Power shifts in relationships with family • Power shifts in relationships with friends And a good bit more…

12. Later – we will look at meanings Part of language across the lifespan is our learning when and how to privilege specific meanings. • …privileged meanings shape the way we understand language…such prominent meanings affect our linguistic and psycholinguistic behavior in areas such as *jokes *irony *metaphors and idioms *innovation • What is “the effect of accessible meanings on speech production and comprehension”? Giora (2003) looks at “how, in addition to contextual information, salient meanings and sense of words and fixed expressions shape our linguistic behavior” (3) R. Giora (2003) On our mind: Salience, context, and figurative Language. Oxford UP

13. Learning about theory It is a great relief, though, that the quest for truth must always fail, so that any new theory is bound to be improved, reversed, or replaced by new thinking. (Giora, On Our Mind, viii) R. Giora (2003) On our mind: Salience, context, and figurative Language. Oxford UP

14. Theories of successful aging stress social interaction • disengagement theory—mutual, insuitable (system’s needs are filled), universal (system disengages in order to provide stability) • activity theory—research findings about activities and social relationships that contradict disengagement • continuity theory—explains why some disengage, others don’t, and both can be happy Nussbaum et al, Ch 1

15. Theories, continued • socioemotional selectivity theory: keyed to social exchange which is basically keyed to the notion of tradeoffs in terms of social relationships • optimize rewards from close personal relationships • minimize costly interactions with unknowns • selective optimization—propositions by which people select, optimize and compensate for the losses (such as reserves, physical strenfgth) • social-environmental theory—interaction of person with environment and socio-cultural norms that define roles and attitudes, which impact relations Nussbaum et al, Ch 1