Santrock Life-span development 16th edition slides.

1. LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENT
Sixteenth Edition
Chapter 18
Cognitive
Development
in Late
Adulthood
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prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Chapter Outline
• Cognitive functioning in older adults
• Language development
• Work and retirement
• Mental health
• Religion and spirituality

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Theorized Age Changes in Cognitive
Mechanics and Cognitive Pragmatics

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Cognitive Functioning in Older Adults
(1 of 12)
• Multidimensionality and multi-directionality
• Education, work, and health
• Use it or lose it
• Training cognitive skills
• Cognitive neuroscience and aging

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Cognitive Functioning in Older Adults
(2 of 12)
• Multidimensionality and multi-directionality
– Cognitive mechanics: Hardware of the mind,
reflecting the neurophysiological architecture of
the brain
 Involve speed and accuracy of the processes
– Cognitive pragmatics: Culture-based software
programs of the mind
 Include reading and writing skills, language
comprehension, educational qualifications,
professional skills, and types of knowledge that
help to master or cope with life

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Cognitive Functioning in Older Adults
(3 of 12)
– Speed of processing
 Considerable individual variation in this ability due
to a decline in functioning of the brain and central
nervous system
– Attention
 Selective attention: Focusing on a specific aspect
of experience that is relevant while ignoring others

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Cognitive Functioning in Older Adults
(4 of 12)
 Divided attention: Concentrating on more
than one activity at the same time
 Sustained attention: Focused and extended
engagement with an aspect of the
environment
 Executive attention: Aspects of thinking that
include planning actions, allocating attention
to goals, detecting and compensating for
errors, monitoring progress on tasks, and
dealing with novel or difficult circumstances

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Cognitive Functioning in Older Adults
(5 of 12)
– Memory
 Explicit memory: Facts and experiences that
individuals consciously know and can state
o Declines as the person ages
o Episodic memory: Retention of information about
the where and when of life’s happenings
o Semantic memory: Person’s knowledge about the
world
 Implicit memory: Memory without conscious
recollection that involves skills and routine
procedures that are automatically performed
o Less likely to be adversely affected by aging

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Cognitive Functioning in Older Adults
(6 of 12)
– Working memory and perceptual speed -
Cognitive resource mechanisms that decline as
the person ages
– Source memory: Ability to remember where one
learned something
– Prospective memory: Remembering to do
something in the future
– Noncognitive factors - Health, education, and
socioeconomic status influence an older adult’s
performance on memory tasks

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Cognitive Functioning in Older Adults
(7 of 12)
– Executive functioning - Aspects of working
memory that decline in older adults involve:
 Updating memory representations that are
relevant for the task at hand
 Replacing old, no longer relevant information
– Decision making - Preserved rather well in older
adults

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Cognitive Functioning in Older Adults
(8 of 12)
– Wisdom: Expert knowledge about the practical
aspects of life that permits excellent judgment
about important matters
 High levels of wisdom are rare
 Late adolescence to early adulthood is the main
age window for wisdom to emerge
 Factors other than age are critical for wisdom to
develop to a high level
 Personality-related factors are better predictors of
wisdom than cognitive factors

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Cognitive Functioning in Older Adults
(9 of 12)
• Education, work, and health
– Education
 Successive generations in America’s 20th century
were better educated
– Work
 Successive generations have placed a stronger
emphasis on cognitively oriented labor
– Health
 Successive generations have been healthier in late
adulthood
 Terminal decline - Best described as slow and
steady

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Cognitive Functioning in Older Adults
(10 of 12)
• Use it or lose it
– Mental activities can benefit the maintenance of
cognitive skills
 Reading books, doing crossword puzzles, going to
lectures and concerts
– Research suggests that mental exercise may:
 Reduce cognitive decline
 Lower the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s
disease

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Cognitive Functioning in Older Adults
(11 of 12)
• Training cognitive skills
– Improve the cognitive skills of older adults
– Some loss in plasticity in late adulthood,
especially in the oldest-old
– Cognitive vitality of older adults can be improved
through cognitive and physical fitness training

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Cognitive Functioning in Older Adults
(12 of 12)
• Cognitive neuroscience and aging
– Cognitive neuroscience - Discipline that studies
links between the brain and cognitive functioning
– Changes in the brain can influence cognitive
functioning, and changes in cognitive functioning
can influence the brain

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
The Relation of Age to Reaction Time

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Language Development
• Decrements in language may appear in late
adulthood
– Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
– Difficulty understanding speech
• Speech of older adults is lower in volume,
slower, less precisely articulated, and less fluent
• Reason for decline in language
– Slower information processing speed
– Decline in working memory

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Work and Retirement (1 of 5)
• Work
• Retirement in the United States and in Other
Countries
• Adjustment to Retirement

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Work and Retirement (2 of 5)
• Work
– Cognitive ability is one of the best predictors of
job performance in older adults
– Older workers have lower rates of absenteeism,
fewer accidents, and higher job satisfaction than
their younger counterparts

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Work and Retirement (3 of 5)
• Retirement in the U.S.
– On average, workers will spend 10 to 15 percent
of their lives in retirement
– Life paths for individuals in their sixties are less
clear
– Seven million retired Americans return to work
after they retire

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Work and Retirement (4 of 5)
• Work and retirement in other countries
– 33 percent of those in their sixties and 11
percent in their seventies are still working
– Increasing number of adults are beginning to
reject the early retirement option

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Work and Retirement (5 of 5)
• Adjustment to retirement
– Older adults who adjust best to retirement are:
 Healthy
 Active and have adequate income
 Better educated
 Have extended social networks and family
 Satisfied with their lives before retiring
 Flexible and plan key factors

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Mental Health (1 of 8)
• Depression
• Dementia, Alzheimer disease, and other
afflictions
• Fear of victimization, crime, and elder
maltreatment

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Mental Health (2 of 8)
• Major depression: Mood disorder in which the
individual is deeply unhappy, demoralized, self-
derogatory, and bored
– Less common among older adults than younger
adults
– Common predictors
 Earlier depressive symptoms
 Poor health or disability
 Loss events
 Low social support

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Mental Health (3 of 8)
• Dementia: Neurological disorder in which
primary symptoms involve a deterioration of
mental functioning
– 23 percent of women and 17 percent of men 85
years and older are at risk for developing

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Mental Health (4 of 8)
• Alzheimer’s disease: Gradual deterioration of
memory, reasoning, language, and eventually,
physical function
– Women are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s
disease because they live longer than men
– Alzheimer’s involves a deficiency in the brain of
messenger chemical acetylcholine
– Formation of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary
tangles

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Mental Health (5 of 8)
– Early detection and drug treatment
 Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) represents a
transitional state between the cognitive changes of
normal aging and very early disease
 fMRI shows smaller brain regions involved in
memory for individuals with MCI

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Mental Health (6 of 8)
– Drug treatment of Alzheimer’s disease
 Cholinerase inhibitors and other drugs slow the
downward progression of the disease
– Caring for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease
 Support is often emotionally and physically
draining for the family
 Respite care - Services that provide temporary
relief for those who are caring for individuals with
disabilities, illnesses, or the elderly

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Mental Health (7 of 8)
– Parkinson’s disease: Chronic, progressive disease
characterized by muscle tremors, slowing of
movement, and partial facial paralysis
 Triggered by the degeneration of dopamine-
producing neurons in the brain
 Several treatments are available

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Mental Health (8 of 8)
• Fear of victimization, crime, and elder
maltreatment
– Older adults receive disproportionately fewer
mental health services
– Psychologists prefer to work with YAVISes rather
than QUOIDs
– Mental health care needs to be more available
and affordable for older adults

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Two Brains: Normal Aging and
Alzheimer Disease

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the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Religion and Spirituality
• Older adults are spiritual leaders in many
societies around the world
• Older adults have higher levels of life
satisfaction, self-esteem, and optimism
• Religion can provide some important
psychological needs in older adults