Question

Compare and contrast the Selective Optimization with Compensation (SOC) and Ecological (ECO) theoretical models. Describe in your own words the purpose and explain how each of the models can be used to describe successful aging.

2. Sensation is simple stimulation of one of five sense organs and, perception is the mental representation resulting from the interpretation of a sensation. Sensory organs need a certain intensity of stimulations before they will register the presence of a signal (stimulus). Explain what the concepts of sensitivity and threshold are and how these two concepts are related. Additionally, provide a brief describe the age-related changes in each.

3. Describe the characteristics of elderspeak and explain how the aspects of elderspeak are likely to be helpful to older adults with a hearing loss and which might not be viewed positively? Relatedly, what is the basic premise of the communication predicament model and what part does patronizing speech play in this model?

Answer 1

1. SOC Model for successful aging:- In this light, then, it is not surprising that processes of goal selection and goal pursuit have a prominent place in models of successful aging. According to the SOC model, successful aging encompasses selection of functional domains on which to focus one’s resources, optimizing developmental potential (maximization of gains) and compensating for losses—thus ensuring the maintenance of functioning and a minimization of losses.

The SOC model constitutes a general model of development that defines universal processes of developmental regulation. These processes vary pheno-typically, depending on sociohistorical and cultural context, domain of functioning (e.g., social relations, cognitive functioning), as well as on the level of analysis (e.g., societal, group, or individual level). Taking an action-theoretical perspective, selection, optimization, and compensation refer to processes of setting, pursuing, and maintaining personal goals.

Selection. Selection refers to developing, elaborating, and committing to personal goals. Throughout the life span, biological, social, and individual opportunities and constraints specify a range of alternative domains of functioning. The number of options, usually exceeding the amount of internal and external resources available to an individual, need to be reduced by selecting a subset of these domains on which to focus one’s resources. This is particularly important in old age, a time in life when resources decline.

Selection directs development because personal goals guide and organize behavior. Successful goal selection requires individuals to develop and set goals in domains for which resources are available or can be attained, and that match a person’s needs and environmental demands.

The SOC model distinguishes between two kinds of selection, elective selection and loss-based selection. Both aspects of selection differ in their function. Elective selection refers to the delineation of goals in order to match a person’s needs and motives with the available or attainable resources. Elective selection aims at achieving higher levels of functioning. In contrast, loss-based selection is a response to the loss of previously available resources that are necessary to maintain functioning. Loss-based selection refers to changes in goals or the goal system, such as reconstructing one’s goal hierarchy by focusing on the most important goals, adapting standards, or replacing goals that are no longer achievable. This allows the individual to focus or redirect his or her efforts when resources used for the maintenance of positive functioning or as a substitute for a functional loss (compensation) are either not available or would be invested at the expense of other, more promising goals.

Selection promotes successful aging in a number of ways. To feel committed to goals contributes to feeling that one’s life has a purpose. Furthermore, goals help organize behavior over time and across situations and guide attention and behavior. One of the central functions of selection is to focus the limited amount of available resources. In old and very old age, when resources become more constrained, selection becomes even more important. Empirical evidence shows that selecting a few life domains on which to focus is particularly adaptive for those older people whose resources are highly constrained.

Optimization. For achieving desired outcomes in selected domains, goal-relevant means need to be acquired, applied, and refined. The means that are best suited for achieving one’s goals vary according to the specific goal domain (e.g., family, sports), personal characteristics (e.g., age, gender), and the sociocultural context (e.g., institutional support systems). Prototypical instances of optimization are the investment of time and energy into the acquisition of goal-relevant means, modeling successful others, and the practice of goal-relevant skills.

In old age, optimization continues to be of great importance for successful development because engaging in growth-related goals has positive regulative functions. Trying to achieve growth-oriented goals is associated with a higher degree of self-efficacy and leads to positive emotions and enhanced well-being. In old age, when losses are prevalent, it might be of particular importance to sustain growth-related goals for promoting well-being, rather than focusing primarily on losses. The positive function of optimization in old age has also been empirically supported in the Berlin Aging Study. In this study, older people who reported to engage in optimization processes reported more positive emotions and higher satisfaction with aging.

Compensation. How do older people manage to maintain positive functioning in the face of health-related constraints and losses? The maintenance of positive functioning in the face of losses might be as important for successful aging as a sustained growth focus. One relevant strategy for the regulation of losses—loss-based selection—has already been discussed. Loss-based selection denotes the restructuring of one’s goal system, for example, by giving up unattainable goals and developing new ones. Developing new goals and investing in their optimization, however, can also deplete resources. Moreover, important personal goals might be central to a person’s well-being and not easily abandoned in the face of loss. In this case, it might be more adaptive to maintain one’s goal by acquiring new resources or activating unused internal or external resources for alternative means of pursuing goals. This process is referred to as compensation.

As previously discussed, the means that are best suited for maintaining a given level of functioning in the face of loss or decline depend on the domain of functioning. Compensation, in contrast to optimization, aims at counteracting or avoiding losses, rather than achieving positive states. Again, data from the Berlin Aging Study support the positive effect of compensation in old age—self-reported compensation was associated with subjective indicators of successful aging (i.e., emotional well-being, satisfaction with aging, and life satisfaction).

2.ECO Model for successful aging:- Research in the epidemiology of aging addresses a variety of topics that

are related to health, functioning, and longevity. Leading areas of research

include the study of the effects of age and aging on survival and mortality;

physical functioning and activities of everyday life; cognitive functioning;

depression and other psychosocial disorders; falls and injuries; and, of

course, disease and comorbidities. In each case, the central question is to

what extent and for what reasons are some people and, indeed, some pop-

ulations, able to do well as they age, while others are not. Moreover, there

is a strong interest in learning how these age-associated patterns of health,

functioning, and longevity are affected by differences in geography or

place, gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.

Epidemiological research in aging has drawn from a wide range of sci-

entific disciplines, including the biologic, behavioral, social, and environ-

mental health sciences. In this chapter, an ecological model is proposed as a

comprehensive framework to summarize the diversity of that research and

to provide a sense of the “big picture.” Aging represents a complex blend-

ing of physiological, behavioral, social, and environmental changes that

occur at both the level of the individual and at the level of the wider com-

munity. An ecological model, we believe, is ideally suited to describe and

explain that complex blend.

The ecological model has a long history in the biologic, behavioral,

social, and health sciences (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; McLeroy, Bibeau,

Steckler, & Glanz, 1988; Sallis & Owen, 1997; Green & Kreuter, 2004).

Depending on the time and discipline, the model has taken different

forms. Some forms of the model highlight the connections among bio-

logic, behavioral, and social factors, while other forms emphasize the sig-

nificance of the social and physical environments—the “context.”

Elements of the model are reminiscent of the components of “agent,”

“host,” and “environment” that make up the traditional epidemiological

perspective. It is important to note that the word “ecological” also has been

used in epidemiology to characterize a largely descriptive approach to pop-

ulation health that is based on associations between, on the one hand, a

summary measure of the population such as per capital consumption of

high-fat foods, and, on the other hand, the incidence or mortality rate of

some health outcome, such as colorectal cancer (Morgenstern, 1998). This

approach often has been used for international comparisons and, more

importantly, as a way of generating hypotheses that are then tested directly

in case-control or prospective studies of individual consumption patterns

and disease outcomes among people in that population. In some cases,

such “aggregate” or group-level associations found in the population have

been used incorrectly as evidence that specific individuals in those popula-

tions who consume high-fat diets are themselves at elevated risk for

colorectal cancer. This, of course, is an example of the “ecologic fallacy”—

falsely generalizing from associations found at the level of the population

to associations found at the level of the individual. It is fair to say that the

prospect of committing this fallacy has discouraged and even intimidated

some researchers from conducting systematic investigations of population

health.

3 Concept of sensitivity and threshold:-

(a)Sensitivity is the proportion of truly diseased persons in the screened population who are identified as diseased by the screening test (i.e. they have high scores). Sensitivity indicates the probability that the test will correctly diagnose a case, or the probability that any given case will be identified by the test.
To help you remember the term, being sensitive implies being able to react to something.

(b) Sensory threshold is the weakest stimulus that an organism can detect. Unless otherwise indicated, it is usually defined as the weakest stimulus that can be detected half the time, for example, as indicated by a point on a probability curve.^[1]Methods have been developed to measure thresholds in any of the senses.

The first systematic studies to determine sensory thresholds were conducted by Ernst Heinrich Weber, a physiologist and pioneer of experimental psychology at the Leipzig University.His experiments were intended to determine the absolute and difference, or differential, thresholds. Weber was able to define absolute and difference threshold statistically which lead to the establishment of Weber’s Law and the concept of just noticeable difference to describe threshold perception of stimuli.

Following Weber’s work, Gustav Fechner, a pioneer of psychophysics, studied the relationship between the physical intensity of a stimulus and the psychologically perceived intensity of the stimulus.Comparing the measured intensity of sound waves with the perceived loudness, Fechner concluded that the intensity of a stimulus changes in proportion to the logarithm of the stimulus intensity. His findings would lead to the creation of the decibel scale.

Several different sensory thresholds have been defined;

• Absolute threshold: the lowest level at which a stimulus can be detected.
• Recognition threshold: the level at which a stimulus can not only be detected but also recognised.
• Differential threshold: the level at which an increase in a detected stimulus can be perceived.
• Terminal threshold: the level beyond which a stimulus is no longer detected.

(c) Age related changes:- Contrary to what has often been said about the subject, decline in taste sensitivity with aging characterizes virtually everybody and is not the artificial result of averaging large losses of a minority with negligible losses of a majority. This assertion is supported by six repeated measures of sucrose thresholds in each of 15 older (over 64 years) and 15 younger (under 27 years) adult subjects. Threshold was determined by a procedure similar to past studies and with the same results: much scatter and considerable overlap between the thresholds of younger and older subjects. A quite contrasting picture emerges, however, when each subject's six threshold determinations are averaged. Averaging shrinks the individual differences among subjects, as well as the over-lap between younger and older subjects. Although virtually all elderly subjects now revealed taste weakness, reliable individual differences in degree of weakness abound among them, suggesting various individual rates of physiological aging. In contrast young persons exhibit greater uniformity of sensitivity. These findings were brought out by inter-test correlations, which were much higher for the older subjects; i.e. an older subject who tended to score high (low) on one test tended to score high (low) on the other tests. The study confirms the tenuous nature of brief threshold tests as indices of personal sensitivity as found earlier also in olfactory thresholds and in concurrent measurement of two-point touch thresholds in the present study. This revealed correlated losses between repeated taste and touch thresholds from the same 15 older subjects, unrelated to their exact chronological age.

3. Elderspeak is a specialized speech style used by younger adults when addressing older adults.^[1] The speaker makes accommodations that include producing shorter, less complex sentences, using simpler vocabulary, filler words, fragmented sentences, lexical filters, and repetition.^[2]Elderspeak also includes using terms that are overly endearing, asking closed questions that prompt an answer, and using the collective “we”.^[3] Young people tend to speak at a slower rate and include more pauses when communicating with elders.^[1] This speech style is often patronizing in nature and resembles baby talk. Elderspeak stems from a reliance on stereotypes about cognitive abilities of older persons, and its use may be a result of or contribute to ageism, a form of discrimination based on age differences.^[4]Young people tend to believe that aging is associated with cognitive declines, including declines in language processing and production.^[5] However, this speech pattern is primarily based on stereotypes, as evidenced by its use in situations where older adults are clearly functioning well. When conversing with older persons, younger people often accommodate their speech based on their personal evaluation of their conversation partner’s ability, rather than their actual ability. Working to overcome elderspeak through awareness and self-monitoring as well as through formal educational programs are strategies individuals and other care providers can use to promote successful aging for older clients.^[6] Therefore, although some aspects of elderspeak may be beneficial for some recipients, it is generally seen as inappropriate and can hinder intergenerational communication.^[7][1]

Elderspeak and communication accommodationEdit

Communication accommodation theory looks at how we modify our speech for our conversation partners. ^[8] People can change their speech to be more similar to their conversation partners’ speech, which is known as convergence. In other circumstances, people may change their speech to be more distinct, a process known as divergence. Furthermore, these modifications can promote fluidity of conversation and ease understanding.^[9]People tend to draw on stereotypes to infer what types of accommodations need to be made. In terms of intergenerational communication, young people tend to over-accommodate when conversing with older persons. That is, they make more adjustments than necessary. Young people tend to infer that older adults are slower at processing information and more cognitively inflexible.^[9] They make these inferences based on the perception of their conversation partner as old, rather than based on information about their conversational ability. This belief leads to more accommodations than necessary. Ryan and colleagues (1986)^[10] assessed several strategies used by younger individuals when accommodating to older adults which include:

• Overaccommodation due to physical or sensory disabilities: speakers perceive interlocutors to have a disability affecting conversation ability, but the speaker accommodates more than necessary
• Dependency-related overaccommodation: this occurs in situations where the older person is dependent on the younger person. The younger person’s speech is dominating and controlling. This pattern can be seen in interactions between an older person and their caregiver.
• Age-related divergence: the young person attempts to emphasize distinctiveness of their ingroup (young) from the outgroup(old). The young person does this by speaking very quickly and using more modern colloquialisms, alienating or accentuating the differences of the older person.
• Intergroup accommodation: Speaker perceives interlocutors as older, which triggers negative stereotypes about their ability. The speaker makes accommodations based on perceptions about the interlocutor’s ingroup, rather than the person themselves.

Use of elderspeakEdit

Elderspeak is used in many different contexts by young people when talking to elder adults. Research by Susan Kemper ^[1] demonstrated that both service providers (volunteers) and professional caregivers alike engaged in elderspeak when interacting with the elderly. Furthermore, elderspeak is used regardless of the communicative ability of the older person. It was used when interacting with older adults who were healthy and active community members, as well as those in institutional settings. Surprisingly, caregivers used patronizing speech both when addressing adults with dementia (and reduced communication abilities), as well as those without dementia ^[1] which demonstrates that age cues are more salient to speakers than mental or physical health cues, and cues about communicative ability. Unfortunately, Elderspeak is based on stereotypes and not actual behaviour of elders because it is used in situations where older adults are clearly functioning well. Elderspeak is actually offensive but nursing home residents are no longer offended by these speech patterns because they have claimed it as a normal habit. ^[11] The use of elderspeak in more “warmth” and lower in a “superiority” dimension when the speaker was a family member and/or friend compared to an unfamiliar. Generally, young adults use an overstated version of elderspeak when addressing impaired older persons. When older adults converse with older people with cognitive impairments, they make speech accommodations to a lesser extent than young people. They speak more slowly and incorporate more pauses, however they do not use more repetition as young people do. It is possible that older speakers may not accommodate their speech as much in order to avoid seeming patronizing.^[12] Research shows that approximately 80% of communication is non verbal. Elderspeak involves communicating to the older adult in a coddling way, which includes non verbal cues and gestures. An example would be looming over a wheelchair or bed in dominancy, or a pat on the buttocks resembling parent-child touching.

Communication predicament model and patronising speech:- The Communication Predicament of Aging Model (CPA) proposes that characteristics of an older person can act as cues that trigger age stereotypes, and that patronizing speech is often produced in response to these stereotypes. The CPA is cyclical, with reinforcement of age-stereotyped behaviors and reduced opportunities for meaningful communication leading to negative changes in the elderly recipient (Ryan, Giles, Bartolucci, & Henwood, 1986; Hummert, 1990). Repeated exposure to patronizing speech can result in avoidance of future interactions or internalizing of age stereotypes as part of self-image. An understanding of the specific predictions of this model is critical to improving communicative interactions with older adults and is also relevant to clinical work with persons with aphasia, particularly in light of current focus on life participation, partner training, and communicative interactions. Patronizing speech has been studied in institutional and community settings with a wide range of subjects and tasks. A variety of attributes have been found to play a role in activating age stereotypes (e.g., perceived vocal age, off-topic verbosity, and physiognomic cues). Further, positively stereotyped older persons (e.g., active, healthy, well-informed, productive, future-oriented) receive more affirming messages, while negatively stereotyped seniors (e.g., depressed, hopeless, neglected, lonely) receive more overtly nurturing messages. Patronizing speech has a continuum of stereotype-sensitive styles, which may relate more to perceived emotional, rather than cognitive and sensory, needs (Thimm, 1998). Despite these studies, the link between age stereotypes and speech accommodations remains unclear. Research findings are potentially confounded by differences in age cues, tasks, and the strong linkage of negative stereotypes with presumed memory and hearing deficits. In general, older adults are perceived as experiencing more language difficulties than young adults due these deficits (Ryan, Kwong See, Meneer & Trovato, 1992). Accommodations to presumed disabilities may conflict with needed accommodations for persons with aphasia. This study was designed to explore differences between hearing and cognitive impairment (implied comprehension deficit) as components of more global stereotypes of older persons. This research is important in aphasia management because partner accommodations in communication may be powerfully influenced by stereotypes about other assumed client attributes.