Spontaneous language production and aging: sex and educational effects.
Sex and educational level effects on spontaneous language production at different ages were analyzed in a 180-normal subject sample taken from the general population. Subjects were divided into groups according to three variables: (1) age (16-30, 31-50, and 51-65 years), (2) educational level (3-7, 8-12 and more than 12 years of formal educational), and (3) sex (males and females) with 10 subjects in each cell. The oral description of the Plate #1 ("The Cookie Theft") from the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (Goodglass & Kaplan, 1972) was selected. Number of nouns, verbs, adjectives and grammatical connectors were scored for each subject's picture description. It was concluded that: (1) the ratio among different phrase elements was very uniform across age, educational level and sex groups; (2) the total number of words used to describe the "The Cookie Theft" picture significantly increased with the subject's educational level; (3) the amount of spontaneous language in general decreased with age; however, a significant interaction-effect between age and sex was observed. A steady and pronounced spontaneous language decrease across age-groups was observed in males. However, only mild differences across age-groups were observed in female subjects. It was hypothetized that language changes during aging are strongly sex-dependent: while in men spontaneous language rapidly decreases with aging, in women spontaneous language production remains quite well-preserved.
Instituto Colombiano de Neuropsicologiá, Bogotá, Colombia.
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Ardila
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Rosselli
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012737:Sex Factors; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D014705:Verbal Behavior