Effect of Age and Education on Discourse Cohesion

BACKGROUND: Several studies have proven the presence of cohesion difficulties in neurogenic communication disorders. However, we still have very little information about discourse cohesion in the intact adult population and the factors that influence it. The aim of the present study is to provide additional information on this topic and to assess the effect of age and education on discourse cohesion. METHODS: One hundred and eighty-two healthy Slovak-speaking adult participants were divided into three age groups and three education groups were asked to tell Cinderella's story. The cohesion of the obtained discourse samples was evaluated. RESULTS: Our study indicates no significant effect of age. However, an increasing tendency of the occurrence of cohesive tie errors with increasing age was described. Education, on the other hand, turned out to be a statistically significant factor and had an impact on the overall use of cohesive ties as well as the use of referential pronouns. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that monitoring the influence of education when creating normative data for discourse cohesion is more important than monitoring the effect of age.