Centre for Policy on Ageing



Language decline across the life span — findings from the Nun Study
Author(s)	Susan Kemper, Lydia H Greiner, Janet G Marquis
Journal title	Psychology and Aging, vol 16, no 2, June 2001
Pages	pp 227-239
Keywords	Cognitive processes ; Performance ; Dementia ; Older women ; Ministers of religion ; United States of America.
Annotation	Measures of grammatical complexity and idea density were obtained from autobiographies written over a 60-year span. Participants who had met criteria for dementia were contrasted with those who did not. Grammatical complexity initially averaged 4.78 (on a 0-7 point scale) for those who did not meet criteria for dementia, and declined .04 units per year. Grammatical complexity for those who met criteria for dementia initially averaged 3.86 and declined .03 units per year. Idea density averaged 5.35 propositions per 10 words initially for those who did not meet criteria for dementia, and declined an average of .03 units per year, whereas idea density averaged 4.34 propositions per 10 words initially for those who met criteria for dementia, and declined .02 units per year. Adult experiences in general did not moderate these declines. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-020111217 A
Classmark	DA: 5H: EA: BD: XR: 7T
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.