Measuring speech accommodation for older adults: A scoping review

Abstract

Younger adults accommodate older adults by using higher pitch, a louder voice, and a slower speech rate, as well as simpler vocabulary and sentences. This scoping review synthesizes research on intergenerational accommodation over the last 60 years to explore how existing studies can inspire new research using novel experimental methods. By examining the current body of work, we aim to identify research opportunities at the intersection between intergenerational accommodation and language processing. A comprehensive literature search was performed in October 2022. Articles in the review report original data about the language and social patterns of intergenerational communication of younger individuals addressing older adults. The search revealed 114 articles that match our inclusion criteria. We extracted detailed information about study designs, participant characteristics, and measurements of the effects of accommodation on older adults. Most studies involved participants of the age of 65 years and older, with typical cognitive profiles, who were native English speakers. Discourse analysis was the most dominant study design, often using observational field studies as the primary data source. Our findings indicate a need for future research to include assessments of individual differences and the use of objective tools, such as neuroscience methods, to measure language processing.