Age-linked declines in retrieving orthographic knowledge: Empirical, practical, and theoretical implications.

Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 14(1) of Psychology and Aging (see record 2008-09595-001). The article contained an error. In Table 1 on page 652, the values for rated spelling ability at age 20 and at current age were reversed for older and oldest adults. The corrected table is included in the erratum, with values that have been changed in bold.] This study developed and tested a Transmission Deficit hypothesis of how aging affects retrieval of orthographic knowledge. Young, older, and very old adults heard a tape-recorded series of difficult-to-spell words of high and low frequency, spoken slowly, clearly and repeatedly, and wrote down each word at their own pace. With perceptual errors and vocabulary differences factored out, misspellings increased with aging, especially for high-frequency words. In addition, data from a metamemory questionnaire indicated that the oldest adults were aware of their declining ability to spell. These findings were not due to general slowing, educational factors, hours per week spent reading, writing, or solving crossword puzzles, or age-linked declines in monitoring or detecting self-produced errors. However, the results fit Transmission Deficit predictions, and suggested an age-linked decline in retrieval of orthographic knowledge that resembles age-linked declines in spoken word retrieval observed in many other studies. Practical implications of this age-linked decline for conceptions of normal aging are noted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)