We all fear old age will affect many of our beloved youthful abilities. Our minds and bodies deteriorate, so our memory starts going and our athletic skills become wonders of the past. Suddenly, even walking up the stairs turns into a challenge.
But there’s one general ability that can be immune to this otherwise tragic story. We’re talking about the use of language, and that’s pretty interesting, in fact. According to research, not only do our linguistic skills survive the general atrophy of old age; they actually benefit from it. In other words, our language abilities tend only to get better as we grow older—and nurturing them might help fend off death and dementia for a really long time.
A treasure trove of information
A forthcoming book by Professor Roger Kreuz, from the University of Memphis, and Foreign Service Officer Richard Roberts, takes a deep look into the latest science on language and aging—and they’ve got some good news.
What they found was essentially that “our ability to produce and to comprehend language is well preserved into older adulthood.” Specific skills such as our knowledge of meanings drastically improve during middle age and late adulthood, so older folks measure considerably better on vocabulary size than both middle-aged and young people.
The book, titled Changing Minds: How Aging Affects Language and How Language Affects Aging, gathers the most relevant research on the topic to come to impressive conclusions. According to one particular study, for instance, older adults (living in a retirement community) had an average vocabulary of more than 21,000 words, whereas college students counted with only 16,000 words.
It is also interesting to note that our language abilities can reliably signal future mental issues and cognitive impairment, like dementia, decades before these problems manifest themselves. A 1996 study found pretty conclusive evidence for this, when researchers analyzed the writing samples of several nuns (hundreds of whom have donated their brains to science). The team found that “the grammatical complexity of essays written by the nuns when they joined their religious order could predict which sisters would develop dementia several decades later.”
Why it’s so important to keep reading and writing
So, we know that our ability to read and write is preserved and even improved as we age. But that’s not all. Research has also shown that making extensive use of these abilities can actually prevent cognitive decline and other health problems, which is pretty impressive.
Even little gestures as simple as keeping a journal have reportedly been shown to “substantially reduce the risk of developing various forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease,” as Kreuz indicates.
And reading is also key. A vast 2016 study by Yale University School of Public Health found that book reading provides a significant survival advantage (especially among the elderly), that reading books is more advantageous in this regard than reading newspapers or magazine articles, and that this advantage is present regardless of gender, wealth, education, or health. That applies to people who read books for at least 30 minutes a day, who go on to live about two years more on average than non-readers. The idea is that constructing fictional universes in our heads and engaging with our imagination processes lead to stronger cognition and better health overall.
Kreuz also points out that the more research is done, the clearer the benefits of reading and writing become. Even learning a new language when we reach older adulthood can improve overall cognitive functioning, as a study published just this year found.
As a matter of fact, reading more than 30 minutes every day proportionately improves the positive results in your life. So don’t put that book down, and consider changing your reading habits to include more fiction novels and fewer online articles. Who knows, you might end up reaping all the benefits of aging as graciously (and keenly) as anyone can hope for.
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