Understanding linguistic differences in mild cognitive impairment: The importance of language context and psychosocial functioning - PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT There is great interest in the early detection of amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) in older adults, as this stage often precedes dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease. Early identification provides an opportunity to intervene on modifiable risk factors to slow further cognitive and functional impairment. While behavioral and psychosocial interventions may effectively delay cognitive decline (e.g., cognitive rehabilitation, physical activity, psychotherapy), no interventions have specifically targeted the language abilities of older adults with aMCI. This is a missed opportunity because (1) language impairments may precede impairments in other cognitive domains, making language metrics potentially more sensitive for detecting aMCI. Previous research has shown measures of semantic richness (e.g., number of unique words) can differentiate individuals with MCI from cognitively unimpaired (CU) older adults. (2) Language impairments in older adults may lead to decreased participation in daily activities, including those that are cognitively protective, such as social engagement. For example, individuals with aMCI may become socially disengaged due to word-finding difficulties (e.g., they feel embarrassed about forgetting names, and attend fewer social or work functions). This proposal aims to better understand the language abilities (i.e., semantic richness) of older adults with aMCI across different contexts and its relationship with psychosocial functioning. The long-term goal of this line of research is to design interventions to improve or maintain independence in daily function and slow the onset to dementia for adults at risk. Legacy performance-based language tasks (e.g., naming line-drawn objects) are decontextualized and may not optimally capture the early semantic language changes in aMCI. In contrast, discourse (i.e., connected speech/language) tasks more closely resemble everyday language use and involve a more complex interplay between multiple cognitive domains and context demands. This study will leverage the large, open-access Delaware Corpus of DementiaBank, housed in the established TalkBank system, to address the research aims. Aim 1 will determine if discourse context (i.e., picture description; story narrative; procedural discourse; personal narrative) differentially affects semantic richness in aMCI and CU groups. Aim 2 will determine if there is a relationship between psychosocial functioning and semantic richness in older adults. Results from this proposal will offer critical insight into the semantic language abilities of individuals with aMCI across different contexts and its link to psychosocial functioning. This knowledge is essential for developing effective treatments for individuals with aMCI that target language and psychosocial function (e.g., group treatment of word-finding problems). The long-term goal of this work is to reduce the functional consequences of language impairments in aMCI, thereby supporting independence and delaying the progression to dementia.
