Jennifer J. Manly|Pegah Touradji|Ming Tang|Yaakov Stern
Literacy and Memory Decline Among Ethnically Diverse Elders
Columbia University
literacy may powerful indicator brain reserve years education literacy level may proxy native intellectual capacity life experience compensate brain damage provide brain reserve alternately experience acquiring literacy skills may change organization brain increase protection cognitive decline however people low levels literacy obtain poor scores cognitive measures longitudinal studies elucidate role reading ability reserve determined whether literacy skills could predict cognitive change sample 136 englishspeaking african american caucasian hispanic elders selected longitudinal aging study new york city according physicians independent examination participants nondemented throughout four longitudinal assessments literacy level assessed using wrat3 reading subtest accounting age baseline years education gee analyses showed elders low levels literacy steeper decline immediate delayed recall word list time compared high literacy elders findings suggest literacy skills protective memory decline among nondemented elders