Child- or adult-directed speech and esteem: effects on performance and arousal in elderly adults

The effects of speech type and esteem level on performance, physiological arousal level, and subsequent esteem were explored in the present study of older individuals. The cardiovascular measures of blood pressure and heart rate showed the procedures to be stressful but produced inconclusive results related to the grouping variables. Practice effects were found for all participants on all tasks, regardless of group membership. On the mirror-tracing task, low esteem participants and participants who received child-directed speech made fewer errors than high esteem participants and participants who received adult-directed speech. The results indicate that older adults perform difficult tasks better with clarified instructions given in an attention-getting manner. This may be especially true on timed tasks where cautious response styles facilitate accuracy of performance (e.g., mirror-tracing tasks). The results were contradictory to more intuitive accounts of child-directed speech negatively impacting self-esteem and performance in this age group.