Narrative Analysis in Malayalam Speaking Geriatrics

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to analyze the repaired strategy and trouble sources in normal geriatrics. 20 geriatrics (10 males &10 females) in the age range of 70-80 years with no history of speech and hearing problem, neurological problem and who spoke Malayalam as their native language participated in the present study. Narrative samples of familiar and unfamiliar tasks were taken analyzed to study types of trouble sources (phonological, morphological-syntactic, semantic, discourse) and repair strategies (repetition, unrelated, elaboration, reduction and substitution) along with the complexity and success of resolution (most successful, successful and unsuccessful) and repair complexity (simple or complex) and the repair sequences were analyzed based on self-initiated self-repairs and SI-incomplete utterances and also the data was analyzed in terms of Type Token Ratio (TTR) using the systematic procedure. The results showed that there is a highly significant difference between the trouble sources, type of repair strategies, repair sequences and resolutions in familiar and unfamiliar tasks. The comparison of TTR for both familiar and unfamiliar task revealed there is a highly significant difference for both open and closed class words and also the unfamiliar tasks have more trouble sources, repair sequences, repair strategies and resolutions. Communication skills are seen to be deteriorated as a function of age.