A systematic review of the relationships amongst older adults’ cognitive and motor speech abilities

Age-related differences in motor speech performance may be only partially explained by physiological factors. In this systematic review we investigated the extent to which cognition is related to older adults’ motor speech production. PsycInfo, PubMed, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library were last searched on 1st October 2024. Eligible studies involved healthy older adults, and/or those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), with an average age of 60 or above. Study quality was formally evaluated and results presented via a narrative synthesis. In total, there were 22 eligible studies identified including 747 older adults. Ten of eighteen studies investigating attention/executive abilities reported significant relationships with motor speech subprocesses in 571 of 661 participants. Relationships between other cognitive abilities and motor speech outcomes were also reported, however, there were significant gaps in the literature and heterogeneity in the measurements used. In addition, only five studies contained the highest quality evidence. Cognition, and potentially executive abilities specifically, may affect speech articulation in healthy aging and in MCI. Further research implementing a range of tasks is required to better understand the trajectory of age-related changes to cognition and motor speech production.