Fostering Storytelling by Persons with Dementia in Multiparty Conversation

Abstract

Persons with dementia (PWDs) frequently find that communicative and cognitive problems may get in the way of participating in a multiparty conversation on a par with their healthy interlocutors. Such troubles may lead to their gradual withdrawal from involvement in the conversation and, if allowed to develop into a pattern, to even greater reductions in engagement in social interaction as a whole. This chapter describes strategies used by interlocutors to foster storytelling by PWDs and thus to counter this development. It investigates two extended cases from two very different types of interaction—an informal sociable lunchtime conversation with friends and a weekly meeting of an early memory loss support group. The analysis shows that healthy interlocutors may identify occasions for a PWD to tell a personal story and invite such telling by producing a story prompt or a request for elaboration. Once the story is launched, they may support the telling by asking topicalizing questions and by suggesting words and formulations as collaborative completions. They may also encourage the telling by giving the PWD time, even when problems of speaking threaten the progression of the story. Common to these strategies is that they support PWDs in speaking for themselves, rather than being spoken for. Such interactional practices build upon PWDs’ remaining communicative resources and promote their agency, empowering PWDs to participate more fully in social life.