Speech Fluency and Ageing

Abstract: Several physiological changes in the speech production process in old age have been documented, yet studies of cognitive changes are few and inconclusive. The current study investigates changes in rates of disfluencies, rates of speech errors and speech rate to examine if speech fluency changes throughout the adult lifespan, as well as whether the influence of task complexity on fluency remains constant regardless of the age of the speaker. Elicited speech from six young, six middle-aged and five older speakers of Swedish describing five simple and five complex stimuli is analysed for disfluencies, speech errors and speech rate. The study finds no significant relationship between the speaker’s age and rate of disfluencies, speech errors or speech rate, and no cohort is significantly more affected by task complexity. The findings suggest that fluency remains relatively intact throughout the adult lifespan.