Susan Kemper

Related Links
Developmental Psychology Program
Language across the Life Span
Doctoral Program in Child Language
Doctoral Program in Gerontology

Research Interests
I am a participating faculty member in the Gerontology Doctoral Program as well as in the Child Language Doctoral program in addition to that in Cognitive Psychology. My research interests cover the life span, focusing on the role of working memory in language processing by young and older adults and language acquisition by children. My "The Language Across the Lifespan Project" addresses how aging affects the processing of spoken and written language and includes comparative studies of healthy older adults and adults with Alzheimer's disease. My research ranges from studies of how older adults' memory affects their speech to studies of how to enhance older adults' comprehension through "elderspeak," a set of special speech modifications designed for older adults. Recently, I have established a eye tracking laboratory for age-comparative studies of reading and visual information processing. Along with other researchers, I examined early language abilities as a predictor of late-life cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease as part of the Nun Study. My research has been supported by a series of grants from the National Institute on Aging, including a Research Career Development Award. I received the 2004 Master Mentor Award from the Retirement Research Foundation and the American Psychological Association, Division 20 (Adult Development), based on nominations from my doctoral and post-doctoral students.

Selected Publications
Kemper, S. & Sumner, A. (2001). The structure of verbal abilities in young and older adults. Psychology and Aging, 16, 312-322.

Kemper, S., Thompson, M., & Marquis, J. (2001). Longitudinal change in language production: Effects of aging and dementia on grammatical complexity and propositional content. Psychology and Aging, 16, 600-614.

Williams, K., Holmes, F., Kemper, S., & Marquis, J. (2003). Written language clues to dementia: An analysis of the letters of King James VI/I. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 53, P42-P44.

Kemper, S., Herman, R. E., & Lian, C. H. T. (2003). The Costs of Doing Two Things at Once for Young and Older Adults: Talking while Walking, Finger Tapping, and Ignoring Speech or Noise. Psychology and Aging, 18, 181-192.

Kemper, S., Herman, R., & Lian, C. (2003). Age differences in sentence production. Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Science, 58, 260-269.

Kemper, S., Crow, A., & Kemtes, K. (2004). Eye fixation patterns of high and low span young and older adults: Down the garden path and back again. Psychology and Aging, 19, 157-170.

Williams, K., Kemper, S., & Hummert, M. L.(2004). Enhancing Communication with Older Adults: Overcoming Elderspeak. Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 17 – 25.

Kemper, S., Herman, R.E., Liu, C. J. (2004). Sentence production by younger and older adults in controlled contexts. Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 58B, P220-P224.

O’Hanlon, L., Kemper, S., & Wilcox, K. A. (2005). Aging, encoding, and word retrieval: Distinguishing phonological and memory processes. Experimental Aging Research, 31, 149-171.