Linguistic features of cognitive decline in aging adults

With increasing life expectancy,there is a growing need to address age-related challenges, including cognitive decline. This study aims to investigate the semantic and syntactic linguistic characteristics ofcognitive decline in the speech of Korean speakers. Speech samples were collected from51 Korean-speaking participants using two tasks: picture description and interview. Participants were categorized into three groups based on cognitive status: NormalCognitive (n=17), Mild Cognitive Impairment (n=17), and Dementia (n=17). Thecollected speech samples were manually transcribed, and various linguistic features wereextracted and analyzed using One-way ANOVA. The findings revealed that cognitivedecline significantly impacts both semantic and syntactic aspects of language. Specifically,noun, verb, and case marker usage decreased with increasing cognitive impairment. Additionally, cognitive decline was associated with simplified syntax, characterized byshorter sentences and fewer clauses. Lexical diversity decline was also observed inindividuals with cognitive impairment. These findings demonstrate that cognitive declinesignificantly affects both semantic and syntactic characteristics of speech in Koreanspeakers. Future research should consider longitudinal studies to further investigate thedynamic progression of language changes across different stages of cognitivedeterioration.