Speech, Language and Communication: An Important Space of Special Geragogics Cover Image

Język, mowa i komunikacja – ważną przestrzenią geragogiki specjalnej
Speech, Language and Communication: An Important Space of Special Geragogics

Author(s): Adam A Zych
Subject(s): Health and medicine and law, Gerontology
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; amnesia; aphasia; dementia; gerontologopaedics; interpersonal communication; language; special geragogics; speech;

Summary/Abstract: Abstract: The subject of this paper is speech, language and communication of elderly people, which is sometimes marked by disease and/or by disability. European society is rapidly ageing. Thirty years ago Europe was named “oldish Europe”, today is “an old man of the world.” The Polish population today is “the most quickly ageing society in Europe…”. The paper presents real demographic, medical, and social problems – i.e. the health condition of the oldest generation. The last decades have brought a new gerontological and linguistic category called elderspeak. In vascular and neurodegenerational illnesses we have four “A”: Amnesia, Agnosia, Apraxia, and Aphasia. Aphasia makes difficult conversation and interpersonal communication. Paul Grice formulated many years ago the classic principles of cooperative conversation and communication: – the quantity of information, – the quality of information, that is the validity or the meaning of messages, and – reference, that is relation to a sick person. The paper ends with the conclusion that in the future it is necessary to create – on the ground of special geragogics – a new field of logopaedics – gerontologopaedics, and above all to create at Polish universities postgraduate studies in gerontologopaedics.

  • Issue Year: 2015
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 397-409
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: Polish