CONSERVATION ABILITIES OF AGING ADULTS: AN ASSESSMENT OF NORMAL AND RETARDED POPULATION

The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the conservation abilities of aging normal and aging retarded individuals, and thereby to address the question of a decline in these abilities with age. The procedure involved giving the Slosson Intelligence Test and a task battery consisting of standard Piagetian measures assessing conservation of number, substance, weight, and volume to 120 participants. There were an equal number of normal elderly, normal young, retarded elderly and retarded young participants.;The data for the normal participants and the retarded participants were analyzed separately using a 2 x 3 x 4 x 2 mixed-model analysis of variance. The results for the normal participants indicated a statistically significant difference among the criteria for conservation, a statistically significant difference among the type of conservation problems, and a statistically significant interaction between the criteria for conservation and the type of conservation problem. For the retarded participants there was a statistically significant difference among the criteria for conservation, the type of conservation problem and significant interactions between the type of conservation problem with age, the criteria for conservation with the type of conservation problem, and the criteria for conservation with the type of conservation problem with age. There was no significant main effect for the age variable in either group.;It was concluded that the notion of conservation abilities declining solely as a result of the aging process is unsubstantiated. Age, by itself was the least important factor related to the conservation abilities of both populations studied. For the normal population, it appears that if an aging person is healthy, active, and engaged in meaningful enterprises, then his conservation abilities are likely to be no different than those of a younger person. As for the population of aging retardates, it appears that these individuals do exhibit a decline in their conservation abilities, but these findings should be taken cautiously since this portion of the study was plagued by many of the contaminating variables that have restricted the validity of past studies on the conservation abilities of aging normals. Finally, in terms of the methodological issues that were addressed, it was clear that the response criteria play a significant role in the determination of whether one is determined to be conserver or a nonconserver. The need for additional research in this area was stressed, and topics for future research were suggested.