/p>The concept of elderspeak, or “language for old people”, is a practice of ageism or “age discrimination” which constitutes a microaggression habitual towards the elderly and has a special relevance in the models of Person Centered Care (ACP), as emphasized Miguel Angel Vazquez Vazquezpresident of the Galician Society of Xerontology and Xeriatrics (SGXX).
As indicated by this expert, microaggression in dealing with the elderly “It is a concept that derives from the Anglo-Saxon term elderspeak (in Spanish, habageria would be used), an ageist use or ageist (age discrimination) of language, which affects self-esteem and the self-concept that older people have”.
This concept of microaggression, coined by Chester Pierceis used to briefly explain the daily verbal way of behavior and treatment, whether intentional or not, with which hostile disagreements, slight insults, derogatory or negative comments are transferred to the person or group.
In this sense, Miguel Ángel Vázquez affirms that The literature has proliferated with definitions, commentaries, and research on the microaggressionand the concept has been expanded to include broader social disparities, such as sexism and heterosexism. and yet “discrimination by age or ageism in relation to microaggression is still conspicuously absent”.
In fact, “the ageism or ageism is one of the most hard to identify because of his social acceptance, to the lack of operational definitions in relation to language stereotyping and the lack of appropriate measurement tools”denounces the president of the .
A situation “very serious” in his opinion, since “all stereotypes towards older people offer a highly distorted social and cultural image of this age groupwhich derives in the elimination of their most basic rights and in the justification and use of bad practices and even mistreatment in your attention.
Not in vain, the discriminatory attitudes and stereotypes are also reflected in the behaviors in speech towards the elderly, an attitude examined in multiple studies, which is characterized by using simplification, superficiality in conversations, a demeaning emotional tone, the use of clarification strategies (for example, taking care of the syllabic articulation in excess) and in some cases, controlling or disapproving of the messages that the older person emits through verbal or gestural communication, as if the person is learning to speak or is a child.
As Miguel Ángel Vázquez indicates, “plenty of younger adults use simpler structures and a condescending tone when providing instructions for older people than if they did so when communicating with people their own age.”. These younger adults “They also tend to use adaptations in their communication with older people who identify with stereotypes regarding the skills of the senior group”.
Taken to the extreme, the president of the SGXX assures that this way of communicating adopts the way of speaking to babies in caregivers of geriatric centerswhich has been associated with stereotyped beliefs regarding the dependency in older adults which is currently beginning to be considered a form of malpractice and abuse. And it is that the infantilization “actually intended the dispossession of rights inherent to an adult person and easy handling or manipulation of the elderly”.
Thus, the “speak for old people” not only represents a paternalistic language, but also “a style of expression that has a slower pace, exaggerated intonation, high pitch, and simpler vocabulary than is used with an adult in normal speech. is in itself a form of abuse in the form of microaggression everyday what does one mean loss of self-esteem and an assumption of stereotypes psychological and social consequences, lowering motivation and self-confidence, reduced participation in activities, and loss of control..