Training the Elderly: The Example of Class Inclusion

The authors used an inclusive reasoning task to assess the cognitive reserve capacities of elderly people. The results showed that it is possible to optimize the inclusive reasoning of individuals who are over 60 years old, regardless of their level of education. ********** Cognitive aging is generally described as a series of declines. These declines are observed in various cognitive processes, including memory, linguistic and attentional processes, and problem solving. Studies on cognitive aging have yielded consistent evidence that the decline begins in the sixth decade of life. Although a few mental abilities begin to deteriorate substantially at about this time, most show only small, but reliable, declines (Schaie, 1993). The most ubiquitous observations are general slowing (Birren, Woods, & Williams, 1980; Salthouse, 1985) and declines in some aspects of memory (Salthouse, 1985). It has also become obvious that the rate of decline is influenced by many factors (P. B. Baltes, 1987; Schaie, 1983). For example, the extent of age-related differences may depend on several variables that are intrinsic to the individual, such as education and motivation, activity level, and personality and health. The differences may also be linked to the material being processed (i.e., its difficulty, structure, presentation speed, mode). Prior to the 1980s, research on the changes in mental abilities that accompany normal aging was primarily descriptive. There were relatively few evaluations of treatments and programs that were designed to modify the intellectual abilities of older adults (P. B. Baltes & Lindenberger, 1988). The first systematic studies of the effects of training on such abilities were undertaken as part of the Penn State Adult Development and Enrichment Project (ADEPT; P. B. Baltes & Lindenberger, 1988) and the Seattle Longitudinal Study (SLS; Schaie, 1993). The aim of both studies was to assess the extent to which cognitive training modified specific psychometric measures of mental ability, that is, figural relations, induction, attention, and how such modifications generalized to other intellectual abilities and were maintained over time. In the ADEPT project, the results showed that figural-relation training enhanced performance on test problems similar to those used during practice and on items that assessed fluid intell igence. Moreover, performance remained elevated over a 6-month period. Induction training enhanced performance, but relatively little transfer was observed; attention training improved performance on three out of four tests. Performance on perceptual-discrimination, selective-attention, and attention-switching tests rose significantly. In the SLS project, the performance of older adults (mean age, 73 years) on tests that assessed spatial orientation and inductive reasoning abilities was measured over repeated testing periods. Individuals were then categorized as "decliners" or "stable" on the basis of their performance. Both participant groups improved following training. Decliners returned to their predecline level, and stable participants demonstrated enhanced performance. The improvements, however, were limited to tests that reflected the targeted mental abilities. It seems that training is unlikely to bring older adults back up to the performance levels observed in young adults. However, training can produce substantial gains in adults who are aging normally. Two kinds of training can be distinguished: "bottom-up" and "top-down" (Tomporowski, 1997). Bottom-up training focuses on the components of the information processing system that are assumed to underlie general cognitive functioning. Declines in older adults' performance are explained on the basis of a reduction in attentional abilities (Salthouse, 1985, 1991), processing speed (Myerson & Hale, 1993), and memory processes (Hultsch & Dixon, 1990). Training programs typically attempt to isolate and modify specific aspects of information processing. …