Effect of Age and Education on Performance of The auditory – Verbal Working Memory ‎Among 40-60 Years Old Normal Hearing Woman‎

Auditory-verbal working memory is the ability to learn, retain, and recall syllables and words. Rey auditory – verbal learning test is one of the common and popular methods to evaluate auditory – verbal memory. Age and education are demographic factors affecting this parameter. The purpose of this study was to investigate these factors on the results of the Persian version of the test.

This descriptive, analytic study was performed on 50 women aged 40-60 years with normal hearing at two age groups (25 women 40 to 49 years old and 25 women 50 to 59 years old), who were selected by convenience sampling method using the Persian version of the Rey Auditory-Verbal Learning test.

A significant correlation was observed between the mean of total recall score, recall after interference score, and delayed score at women 40 to 49 years old (p< 0.01). Also there was a significant positive correlation between education and these scores (p< 0.01).

According to the results of this study, it seems that the beginning of decrement changes in memory occurs before the aging, which necessitates the need to consider and take preventive measures to reduce the incidence of inability in the elderly more and more. Furthermore, education can be considered as a major demographic characteristic on this test.