DISCOURSE IN HEALTHY OLD-ELDERLY ADULTS - A LONGITUDINAL-STUDY

This longitudinal study investigated discourse abilities in 16 normal adults in their 80s and 90s at two separate testing times. The discour se tasks evaluated macro-level processing of narratives as manifested on retells, summaries, gists, and morals, and in explanations of prove rbs. The group results showed preservation with increased age on those discourse tasks that required global levels of processing. No signifi cant decreases in performance were found in applying strategies of red uction, generalization, and interpretation, factors associated with pr eserved discourse function in normal advanced ageing are discussed. Th e findings have implications for differential diagnosis of dementia an d aphasia.