Word-Finding Behaviors of Discourse Production Task in Healthy Elderly Adults

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate whether there is a difference in word-finding behaviors in the discourse production task according to the age group of the elderly, from the young-old to the old-old.Methods: A total of 103 healthy elderly adults (55 to 85 years old) participated in this study. To exanimation of word-finding behaviors in the discourse, a picture description task was used. And, as the word naming task, the confrontational naming and the verbal fluency tasks were used.Results: First, according to the age group, the difference in the ratio of word-finding behaviors were statistically significant. Especially, there were significant differences according to the age group of the elderly in word-finding behaviors of repetitions, empty words, insertions, and delays. Second, the difference in performances of word naming task (Korean version-Boston Naming Test and semantic verbal fluency) according to the age group of the elderly was found to be significant. Finally, the performance of the word naming task showed a significant correlation with the ratio of word-finding behaviors in the discourse production task.Conclusion: This study has clinical significance in that it analyzed various word-finding behaviors in a natural environment where the problem of naming appears in elderly adults.