View in EDS PDF Full Text

Age-Related Effects on Language Production During Selective and Divided Attention Conditions: Implications for Aphasia Assessment.

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Title: Age-Related Effects on Language Production During Selective and Divided Attention Conditions: Implications for Aphasia Assessment.
Authors: McDonald, Emily1, Harmon, Tyson G.1 TysonHarmon@byu.edu, Bailey, Dallin J.1
Source: Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research. Apr2026, Vol. 69 Issue 4, p1783-1803. 21p.
Subject Terms: *Data analysis, *Phonological awareness, *Aphasia, *Attention, *Experimental design, *Speech evaluation, *Case studies, *Comparative studies, *Language acquisition, *Inter-observer reliability, Task performance, Research funding, Two-way analysis of variance, Kruskal-Wallis Test, Questionnaires, Age distribution, Severity of illness index, Descriptive statistics, Statistics, Friedman test (Statistics), Data analysis software, Transducers
Abstract: Purpose: This study was divided into two parts. Study 1 aimed to investigate how dual-task and select background noise conditions impact language production of neurologically healthy adults (NHA). Study 2 aimed to use the sample from Study 1 to identify whether four people with mild aphasia perform at an expected level when compared with their NHA peer group. Method: Study 1 examined the spoken language production of NHA in sustained, selective, and divided attention conditions during a story retell task. NHA participant groups consisted of 21 young and midlife adults (26-54 years), 19 early older adults (55-69 years), and 20 late older adults (70-85 years). Study 2 used a case series approach to investigate how the language production of four people with aphasia (PWA) compared to their respective NHA group. All participants retold stories in a silent baseline condition, three background noise conditions (cocktail party, conversation, phone call), and one dual-task condition (tone discrimination). Language production measures (language informativeness, lexical diversity, lexical--phonological errors, speech rate, disfluent verbalizations), tone discrimination accuracy and response time, and perceived effort and stress were compared across groups and conditions. Results: Study 1 revealed that the language of late older adults was significantly less efficient than the other two groups, that both late and early older adults produced more disfluent verbalizations than young and midlife adults, and that late older adults demonstrated more lexical diversity than early older adults. The tone discrimination accuracy and response time of late older adults were also significantly lower than those of young and midlife adults. Across groups, language informativeness decreased and lexical--phonological errors increased during the dual-task condition, and lexical diversity decreased while lexical--phonological errors and disfluent verbalizations increased during the phone call condition. Costs to tone discrimination accuracy, tone discrimination response time, perceived effort, and perceived stress were found in the dualtask condition across groups. In Study 2, four PWA showed impaired language production when compared with their age-matched NHA group across multiple dependent variables with somewhat unique responses for each participant. Ultimately, three of the four showed some degree of interference in the attentionally demanding conditions, whereas one showed some degree of benefit. Conclusions: The findings of Study 1 suggest that some, but not all, measures of spoken language production are impacted by aging, and that selective and divided attention interfere with spoken language production for NHA. Study 2 suggests that although attentional demands may disproportionately affect error production for many PWA, some may also experience benefits to their spoken language during attentionally demanding conditions. These findings emphasize the importance of individualized evaluation of the impact of everyday communication environments for PWA. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.31804207 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research is the property of American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Database: Education Research Complete
FullText Links:
  – Type: pdflink
Text:
  Availability: 0
Header DbId: ehh
DbLabel: Education Research Complete
An: 192982191
AccessLevel: 6
PubType: Academic Journal
PubTypeId: academicJournal
PreciseRelevancyScore: 0
IllustrationInfo
Items – Name: Title
  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: Age-Related Effects on Language Production During Selective and Divided Attention Conditions: Implications for Aphasia Assessment.
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22McDonald%2C+Emily%22">McDonald, Emily</searchLink><relatesTo>1</relatesTo><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Harmon%2C+Tyson+G%2E%22">Harmon, Tyson G.</searchLink><relatesTo>1</relatesTo><i> TysonHarmon@byu.edu</i><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Bailey%2C+Dallin+J%2E%22">Bailey, Dallin J.</searchLink><relatesTo>1</relatesTo>
– Name: TitleSource
  Label: Source
  Group: Src
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="JN" term="%22Journal+of+Speech%2C+Language+%26+Hearing+Research%22">Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research</searchLink>. Apr2026, Vol. 69 Issue 4, p1783-1803. 21p.
– Name: Subject
  Label: Subject Terms
  Group: Su
  Data: *<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Data+analysis%22">Data analysis</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Phonological+awareness%22">Phonological awareness</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Aphasia%22">Aphasia</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Attention%22">Attention</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Experimental+design%22">Experimental design</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Speech+evaluation%22">Speech evaluation</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Case+studies%22">Case studies</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Comparative+studies%22">Comparative studies</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Language+acquisition%22">Language acquisition</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Inter-observer+reliability%22">Inter-observer reliability</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Task+performance%22">Task performance</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Research+funding%22">Research funding</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Two-way+analysis+of+variance%22">Two-way analysis of variance</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Kruskal-Wallis+Test%22">Kruskal-Wallis Test</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Questionnaires%22">Questionnaires</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Age+distribution%22">Age distribution</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Severity+of+illness+index%22">Severity of illness index</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Descriptive+statistics%22">Descriptive statistics</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Statistics%22">Statistics</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Friedman+test+%28Statistics%29%22">Friedman test (Statistics)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Data+analysis+software%22">Data analysis software</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Transducers%22">Transducers</searchLink>
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: Purpose: This study was divided into two parts. Study 1 aimed to investigate how dual-task and select background noise conditions impact language production of neurologically healthy adults (NHA). Study 2 aimed to use the sample from Study 1 to identify whether four people with mild aphasia perform at an expected level when compared with their NHA peer group. Method: Study 1 examined the spoken language production of NHA in sustained, selective, and divided attention conditions during a story retell task. NHA participant groups consisted of 21 young and midlife adults (26-54 years), 19 early older adults (55-69 years), and 20 late older adults (70-85 years). Study 2 used a case series approach to investigate how the language production of four people with aphasia (PWA) compared to their respective NHA group. All participants retold stories in a silent baseline condition, three background noise conditions (cocktail party, conversation, phone call), and one dual-task condition (tone discrimination). Language production measures (language informativeness, lexical diversity, lexical--phonological errors, speech rate, disfluent verbalizations), tone discrimination accuracy and response time, and perceived effort and stress were compared across groups and conditions. Results: Study 1 revealed that the language of late older adults was significantly less efficient than the other two groups, that both late and early older adults produced more disfluent verbalizations than young and midlife adults, and that late older adults demonstrated more lexical diversity than early older adults. The tone discrimination accuracy and response time of late older adults were also significantly lower than those of young and midlife adults. Across groups, language informativeness decreased and lexical--phonological errors increased during the dual-task condition, and lexical diversity decreased while lexical--phonological errors and disfluent verbalizations increased during the phone call condition. Costs to tone discrimination accuracy, tone discrimination response time, perceived effort, and perceived stress were found in the dualtask condition across groups. In Study 2, four PWA showed impaired language production when compared with their age-matched NHA group across multiple dependent variables with somewhat unique responses for each participant. Ultimately, three of the four showed some degree of interference in the attentionally demanding conditions, whereas one showed some degree of benefit. Conclusions: The findings of Study 1 suggest that some, but not all, measures of spoken language production are impacted by aging, and that selective and divided attention interfere with spoken language production for NHA. Study 2 suggests that although attentional demands may disproportionately affect error production for many PWA, some may also experience benefits to their spoken language during attentionally demanding conditions. These findings emphasize the importance of individualized evaluation of the impact of everyday communication environments for PWA. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.31804207 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
– Name: AbstractSuppliedCopyright
  Label:
  Group: Ab
  Data: <i>Copyright of Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research is the property of American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.</i> (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=ehh&AN=192982191
RecordInfo BibRecord:
  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1044/2025_JSLHR-24-00550
    Languages:
      – Code: eng
        Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 21
        StartPage: 1783
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Data analysis
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Phonological awareness
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Aphasia
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Attention
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Experimental design
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Speech evaluation
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Case studies
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Comparative studies
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Language acquisition
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Inter-observer reliability
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Task performance
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Research funding
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Two-way analysis of variance
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Kruskal-Wallis Test
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Questionnaires
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Age distribution
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Severity of illness index
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Descriptive statistics
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Statistics
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Friedman test (Statistics)
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Data analysis software
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Transducers
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: Age-Related Effects on Language Production During Selective and Divided Attention Conditions: Implications for Aphasia Assessment.
        Type: main
  BibRelationships:
    HasContributorRelationships:
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: McDonald, Emily
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Harmon, Tyson G.
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Bailey, Dallin J.
    IsPartOfRelationships:
      – BibEntity:
          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 04
              Text: Apr2026
              Type: published
              Y: 2026
          Identifiers:
            – Type: issn-print
              Value: 10924388
          Numbering:
            – Type: volume
              Value: 69
            – Type: issue
              Value: 4
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research
              Type: main
ResultId 1