The conditions of literacy in the aging process: an analysis with elderly over 65 years

ABSTRACT

The conditions of literacy in the aging process: an analysis with elderly over 65 years

Paulo Penha de Souza Filho

Graduate Program (Masters degree) in Communication Disorders, Universidade Tuiuti do Paraná – UTP – Curitiba (PR), Brazil

^{Correspondence}

Souza Filho PP. The conditions of literacy in the aging process: an analysis with elderly over 65 years [thesis]. Curitiba: Universidade Tuiuti do Paraná; 2011.

With the increasing of human longevity and consequently of the elderly population, one must consider a life of quality and autonomy, and the conditions of reading and writing play an important role in the aging process, especially by being inserted in a literate society. In this context, this study proposes to examine the conditions of literacy of people aged at least 65 years. We used a questionnaire and a reading test containing texts of various genres from the 72 elderly subjects over 65 years living in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil. The questionnaire includes age, educational level, profession, and practices and situations of reading and writing. In the reading test, subjects were asked to find explicit and implicit information in four texts: a fable, a poster, a ticket, and a newspaper. The elderly, the research subjects, now have easy daily access to books, magazines and newspapers. But the connection with these materials is still lacking, with a significant practical use restricted to written language. In addition, we determined that 43.39% of these individuals have difficulty extracting information from simple texts that are present in everyday life. There is need for special attention by civil society organizations and the scientific community to enlarge the understanding of practices of reading and writing in the context of gerontology to significantly benefit our society in medium and long term, with the promotion of activities that enable the elderly to exercise their basic rights as citizens.

Conflict of interests: None

Study conducted at the Graduate Program in Communication Disorders, Universidade Tuiuti do Paraná – UTP – Curitiba (PR), Brazil, for obtention of the Masters degree in Communication Disorders, under supervision of Dra. Giselle Aparecida de Athayde Massi.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  26 June 2012
• Date of issue
  June 2012