What is it about?
Researchers of dementia come from many disciplines and do not necessarily share their terminology or assumptions about what words mean. They also may interpret in different ways the language used by people with dementia. This paper outlines the challenges and offers a way forward for effective interdisciplinary research.
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Why is it important?
Dementia diagnosis, prevention and treatment is a high priority, and researchers are entrusted with great responsibility to develop new knowledge. We need reliable ways of ensuring we communicate effectively.
Perspectives
I've worked on dementia language for some time now and have experience of noticing where research doesn't always join up. I also conducted a three year ESRC study examining the nature of social science research expertise and one of the consistent observations made by our expert researcher informants was the need to 'talk the same language' as those in other disciplines. This includes the way we talk about language itself, since language is a major marker of the development of dementia.
Professor Alison Wray
Cardiff University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Language of Dementia Science and the Science of Dementia Language, Journal of Language and Social Psychology, August 2016, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0261927x16663591.
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