Message production across the life span: Communication and aging

Contemporary communication researchers do not incorporate a life-span persp ective in their theories of message production. A case is made here for inc luding life-spall perspectives. In addition, we describe and explain numero us age-related changes in a person's ability to produce competent messages. We present two theories of successful aging, along with a brief review of research related to the aging process and message production in order to il lustrate the importance of incorporating the life-span perspective into mes sage-production theorizing.