Honorific Speech Impairment: A Characteristic Sign of Frontotemporal Dementia

Individuals with the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) exhibit various levels of abulia, disinhibition, impaired judgment, and decline in executive function. Empirical evidence has shown that individuals with bvFTD also often exhibit difficulty using honorific speech, which expresses respect to another party or addressee.

To analyze differences in the ability to use honorific speech among individuals with bvFTD, individuals with dementia of the Alzheimer type (AD dementia), and individuals with normal cognition (NC).

A total of 53 native Korean speakers (13 bvFTD, 20 AD dementia, and 20 NC) completed an experimental honorific speech task (HST) that involved both expressive and receptive tasks. We analyzed the number of correct responses and error patterns separately for an expressive task and for a receptive task.

The bvFTD group had significantly fewer correct responses on the HST compared with the AD dementia and NC groups. The bvFTD group exhibited more misjudgment errors in identifying nonhonorific speech as honorific speech in the expressive task, and significantly longer response times in the receptive task, than the AD dementia and NC groups. Significant associations were identified between HST scores and cortical atrophy in the temporal and frontotemporal lobes.

A decline in the ability to use honorific speech may be a diagnosable behavioral and psychiatric symptom for bvFTD in Korean-speaking individuals. This decline in individuals with bvFTD could be attributed to multiple factors, including social manners (politeness) and impaired social language use ability (pragmatics).