Language

One aspect of language-- semantic knowledge-- appears to decline with age, although significant differences are not found until relatively late in the life span (greater than 70 years). Semantic knowledge involves word retrieval and is tested by having respondents name common objects. Linguistic abilities that are not affected include phonologic knowledge (use of sounds of language), lexical knowledge (i.e. the name of an item and the meaning of a word), and syntactic knowledge (i.e. ability to combine words correctly).