Sentence comprehension, syntax and vowel duration in aged people

Abstract

The comprehension of English syntax was tested for 29 people, aged 71–93 years, using the Rhode Island Test of Language Structure (Engen and Engen, 1983). Nineteen of the subjects were native monolingual speakers of English or bilingual English/Yiddish speakers, ten had acquired English as a second or third language. The native monolingual/bilingual group made 20% fewer errors than the second-language group. Although some individuals had high error rates, there was no consistent age-related increase in syntactic errors for the native speakers of English. Vowel duration was determined for 24 subjects. Older speakers tended to have longer vowel durations, but individual differences override this trend. The subjects who had the highest syntactic error rates produced longer vowels. The effects are consistent with deficits in comprehension and slower speech production deriving from particular disease processes rather than from ageing, in itself. They may be effects of decreased output of the neurotransmitter dopamine.