Journal of Psycholinguistic Research · Jun 1, 2026

Ageing, Cognitive Deterioration, and Verbal Disfluency: A Case Study in Thailand

By Sirikanerat T, Siriwittayakorn T

Studies on the effects of ageing on cognitive functioning and verbal performance were often conducted in western population with mixed results. More recent research suggested roles of socio-individual factors in modulating the age effects. The present study employed different tasks including a working memory test, a picture naming task, and a storytelling task to investigate the ageing effects in Thai population, the underrepresented group. Socio-individual factors including education, stress, and sleep hours were also included, and age was treated as continuous variable in the analyses. From a working memory test, it was found that with every increase in age, there was a decline in working memory capacity. To test whether cognitive deterioration resulting from age affects verbal performance, and whether each socio-individual factor could directly affect verbal performance, a picture naming task and a storytelling task were conducted. It was found that age was inversely related to disfluency in terms of pause filler production, self-monitoring, and self-repair. None of socio-individual factors was significant. The study calls for more careful analyses on speech-disfluency variables.

doi.org/10.1007/s10936-026-10260-xPubMed 42223518Populations