Communication skills of elderly adults

The communication performance of young and elderly adults was studied in dyads that were either homogeneous or heterogeneous for age. The members of each dyad were given identical matrix boards and sets of objects and were instructed to place the objects on the boards in precisely the same arrangement. The partners could see each other, but not the other's test materials. The elderly subjects were between 58 and 81 yr old, and were living independently. The young subjects were college students. There were 10 dyads consisting of pairs of older persons, 9 dyads with only young persons, and 9 dyads that involved an old and a young subject. Different subjects were used in the three groups. The groups did not differ in their accuracy or the time required to complete the task, in contrast to suggestions that the elderly communicate slowly and ineffectually. There were significantly more meta-comments in the old-young group than in the other groups; that is, in the mixed dyads, the partners commented more about the task and strategies for dealing with it than in the homogeneous pairs.