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KMID : 1036820140190040513
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Communication Sciences & Disorders
2014 Volume.19 No. 4 p.513 ~ p.522
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Verbal Working Memory and Verbal Memory’s Relationship to Discourse Comprehension in Healthy Elderly
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Choi Hyun-Joo
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Abstract
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Objectives: Comprehension of spoken discourse is an important component of functional communication in the elderly and is related to various cognitive processes. The purpose of the present study was to identify the characteristics of discourse comprehension in healthy elderly adults and see how discourse comprehension is influenced by both verbal working memory and verbal memory.
Methods: Sixty healthy elderly adults (male 30, female 30) participated in this study. They took part in discourse comprehension tasks using two different stories, a verbal working memory test (Digit Span Test: Forward/Backward) and a verbal memory test (Seoul Verbal Learning Test [SVLT]).
Results: The results were as follows. First, discourse comprehension ability did not vary with gender, age, educational level or Korean Mini-Mental State Examination score. Second, there was a significant correlation between the discourse comprehension score and performance on the Backward Digit Span Test and all sections of the SVLT. Third, regression analysis indicated that verbal working memory and verbal memory were significant predictors for discourse comprehension ability in healthy elderly.
Conclusion: These results suggest that discourse comprehension ability is a complex skill that depends largely on different aspects of verbal memory. These finding have clinical implications for evaluation and intervention in discourse comprehension for elderly patients with neurogenic communication disorders.
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KEYWORD
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Discourse comprehension, Verbal working memory, Verbal memory
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