A LONGITUDINAL-STUDY OF OFF-TARGET VERBOSITY

This study reports a follow-up examination of the speech of 175 subjects, aged 65 and over, who had participated in an initial evaluation of the cognitive and psychosocial correlates of Off-Target Verbosity (OTV). OTV speech showed significant stability across the 15 months of the study. The pattern of relationships among age, cognitive function, psychosocial variables, and OTV scores was similar for the two test occasions. Subjects who had experienced more frequent and less desirable life changes and had lower verbal fluency scores were more verbose. An association between age and OTV appeared due to age-related inhibition and psychosocial functioning. The results were interpreted within a conceptual model framework illustrating causal and other links among variables.