Many people naturally resort to something like baby talk when communicating with older people. More than just a way to adapt to the cognitive declines that the elderly can develop as they age, this trend is known as “elderly language.” It often involves using a singsong tone, exaggerating and prolonging words or syllables, speaking slower than necessary, limiting vocabulary, repeating statements over and over, making statements sound like questions, and using diminutives such as “honey,” “dear” and “darling”. While the language of the elderly may be common practice, studies consistently show that the elderly do not like to be spoken to in this way and that speaking in this way can even be harmful.

Susan Kemper, a distinguished professor of gerontology at the University of Kansas, received a grant from the National Institute on Aging to study the ways in which the young change their speech patterns when communicating with the elderly. For her study, Kemper paired older and younger people as conversation partners. What she found was that the younger speakers consistently reverted to the language of the older ones, even when the older listeners did not indicate that they had difficulty understanding the conversation. Kemper also concluded that the language of the elderly did not in any way help the older listeners to understand what was being communicated, but instead made the older listeners perceive themselves as cognitively disabled.

In fact, based on another study, Yale professor Becca Levy concluded that perceiving oneself as cognitively disabled actually leads to lower cognitive functioning. Levy says condescending and condescending phrases like “good girl” and “How are we feeling today?” it can be extremely damaging. “Those little insults,” she tells us, “can lead to more negative images of aging” and “those who have more negative images of aging have poorer functional health over time, including lower survival rates.”

However, the use of elder language is pervasive in the elder care industry, particularly in nursing homes and assisted living settings. A research team also from the University of Kansas, headed by Professor Kristine Williams, videotaped interactions between twenty staff members and residents of a nursing home. The tapes revealed that when staff members used elder language to speak to residents, the residents were invariably less cooperative and responsive to attention and more aggressive. Many expressed their frustration at being approached like babies by making faces, yelling, or refusing to respond to requests from staff members.

So why do health professionals use the language of the elderly? Williams suggests that many workers see it as a warm and caring way to connect with their patients, adding that they “don’t realize the implications” because “it’s also sending messages to older adults that they’re incompetent.” While a small number of caregivers are aware of these dangers, much remains to be done to raise awareness of the problem.

Not unlike the similar problem of child care professionals “sneering” at children, which also impedes cognitive development, the language problem of the elderly is endemic in part because the industry is not set up to support the long-term relationships with caregivers. Turnover rates in nursing homes and assisted living facilities can often be very high. Staff are often assigned to care for many residents without being primary caregivers for any of them, making it difficult to form lasting bonds. Home caregivers, on the other hand, typically care for only one patient at a time, and often for much longer periods of time, building relationships where each patient’s individual needs can be understood and supported.

Elderspeak also reflects broader cultural malaises around the subject of aging. As New York Times journalist John Leland notes, “As long as our culture is uncomfortable with the aging process, I suspect we will be uncomfortable with the language used to describe it.”