Exploring Gender-Based Differences in Discourse Cohesion Among the Geriatric Population

Purpose: As individuals age, discourse cohesion may be affected, and gender can influence patterns of conversational interaction. Despite this, there is a lack of research exploring how gender impacts discourse cohesion in geriatric population. Gaining insight into these differences is important for developing communication assessments that are both culturally sensitive and clinically relevant. This study aimed to explore gender-based differences in discourse cohesion within the geriatric population.Methods: The study involved forty participants above 60 years of age, with an equal distribution of males and females. The participant’s conversational tasks were video recorded and analyzed using the complementary procedure for conversational discourse analysis, with coding performed using ELAN 6.8 (EUDICO Linguistic Annotator) software (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands).Results: A significant gender difference (p ≤ 0.05) was observed in specific domains of discourse cohesion. Females exhibited a higher frequency of abrupt interruptions, whereas males demonstrated more frequent instances of repeating words and repeating information. However, no significant gender differences were found in the remaining domains of discourse cohesion.Conclusion: These findings underscore the importance of considering gender when assessing discourse cohesion in geriatric population and highlight the potential value of identifying subtle gender-linked patterns to refine communication assessments and support individualized intervention strategies.