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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| An evaluation of the Keep on Talking program for maintaining communications skills into old age | | Author(s) | Linda Worrall, Louise Hickson, Heather Barnett |
| Journal title | Educational Gerontology, vol 24, no 2, March 1998 |
| Pages | pp 129-140 |
| Keywords | Communication skills ; Courses ; Adult Education ; Evaluation ; Australia. |
| Annotation | The Keep on Talking programme was developed to help older people in Australia with their strategies for maintaining communication skills into old age. 250 healthy older people were assessed on a battery of communication assessments at the start of the study and one year later. An experimental group of 120 participated in the 5-week group Keep on Talking programme run by volunteers; the other 130 in the control group were assessed only. The course's short-term effectiveness was evaluated using a short knowledge-based questionnaire and qualitative written feedback. At 1-year follow-up, subjects were also asked whether they had taken any action as a result of the project. Results concluded that there was a significant difference between the number of correct questionnaire responses on the knowledge based items, and the pre- and post-course questionnaire for experimental subjects. 48 experimental and 69 control subjects were assessed 1 year later: there was a significant difference between the groups in terms of those who had taken action as a result of the course. Maintaining communication skills may prevent social isolation; and this simple 5-hour course proved effective in empowering its participants. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-980811215 A |
| Classmark | UO: VE: GP: 4C: 7YA |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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