Sentence repetition skill in Kannada Speaking healthy adults

The present study was an attempt to understand sentence repetition patterns in 120 healthy adults, (Males and females in equal numbers) ages varying from 35to55 years with Kannada as their first language. As a tool for the study, compound sentences under 10 categories, namely, assertive, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory, direct, indirect, causatives, active voice, conditional, and relative clauses imitation, were selected. Each category consisted of two sentences forming a total of 20 sentences. All the sentences were recorded by a female Kannada speaker using Adobe audition software (version 2.4.2). The participants were asked to listen to each pre-recorded sentence and repeat it as close to the original stimulus. The responses were audio recorded using a digital voice recorder with a high-quality 50 built-in microphone. The response was analyzed for correct sentence repetition and error type. Sentence repetition scores and word correct scores in sentence repetition tasks decreased with age. No effect of gender was noted on the sentence repetition tasks. The results also indicate that the substitution errors’ frequency was higher, followed by omission, addition, transposition, and code-mixing. Age-related cognitive differences and language differences might have resulted in a decline in the performance of sentence repetition tasks.