Kemper, S., & Harden, T. (1999). Experimentally disentangling what's beneficial about elderspeak from what's not. Psychology and Aging, 14(4), 656-670.

Kemper, S.; Harden,T.

1999

Kemper, S., & Harden, T. (1999). Experimentally disentangling what's beneficial about elderspeak from what's not. Psychology and Aging, 14(4), 656-670.

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Three studies evaluated different varieties of elderspeak using a referential communication task. Experiment 1 compared the effects of syntactic simplifications and semantic elaborations. Experiment 2 contrasted syntactic simplifications and prosodic exaggerations. Experiment 3 contrasted 2 different syntactic simplification strategies and 2 different prosodic exaggerations. Providing semantic elaborations and reducing the use of subordinate and embedded clauses benefit older adults and improve their performance on the referential communication task, whereas reducing sentence length, slowing speaking rate, and using high pitch do not. The use of short sentences, a slow rate of speaking, and high pitch resulted in older adults' reporting more communication problems. These experiments validate a version of elderspeak that benefits older adults without sounding patronizing and insulting.

As in previous research, pitch exaggerations and slow speaking rates appear to trigger negative self-assessments by older adults of their own communicative competence, resulting in their self-report of more communication problems. Older adults also rated the speaker lower when she used high pitch and a slow speaking rate. Pitch exaggerations and slow speaking rated do not enhance older adults' comprehension and may hinder it under some conditions.

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