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Ageing And Its Effect On Language

The dramatic increase during the 20th century in the number of people reaching old age has helped to continue a long tradition of research into the effects of ageing on human cognition. In the past the plurality of humans departed, by current standards, early in life with sound mind. While the modern individual is no longer troubled with small pox or polio, he is however, in a race between death and mental deterioration. To live is to be doomed to an unalterable fate of mental antiquity, checking out a decrepit, feeble-minded, old man. Until somewhat recently, this was the imagery tied to the ageing process in the mind of laymen and scientists alike. They believed with the onset of older age, i.e. after the developmental peak of say 40, there was a slow decline of all mental functioning. However, recent research indicates, through the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), "some types of language processing may be performed more efficiently in older individuals" (Crown).
Theorists of the mid-Twentieth century were not incorrect in concluding that the human mind experiences mental decline as a function of age, they simply failed to realize the accommodating nature of the brain. Despite the decrease in brain activity that naturally occurs in aging, "the brain…not a static organ…may accomplish the same task in different ways as a function of a person's age," according to Darren Gitelman, an associate professor of neurology at The Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. In other words, although a person may experience decline in the temporal lobe, for example, the brain finds alternate ways in which to execute a function that might have lapsed as a result of the loss. Our focus however, is more specific to the frontal lobe and the effects of age on language.
How age affects human ability to communicate is perhaps the most important area of Gerontology. After all, language is not only an integral part of humanity; it also serves as the...