What can be said of the normal process of aging, from a linguistic point of view? In general (1)_____, there is a clear and (2)_____ relationship: no-one would have much difficulty (3)_____ a baby, a young child, a teenager, a middle-aged person, or a very old person from a tape recording. With children, (4)_____ is possible for specialists in language development, and people experienced (5)_____ child care, to make very detailed (6)_____ about how language correlates with age in the early years. (7)_____ is known about the patterns of linguistic change that affect older people. It is plain that our voice quality, vocabulary, and style alter (8)_____ we grow older, but research (9)_____ the nature of these changes is in its earliest stages. However. a certain amount of (10)_____ is available about the production and (11)_____ of spoken language by very old people, especially regarding the phonetic changes that take place. Speech is (12)_____ to be affected by reductions in the (13)_____ of the vocal organs. The muscles of the chest (14), the lungs become less elastic, the ribs (15)_____ mobile: as a result, respiratory efficiency at age 75 is only about half (16)_____ at age 30, and this has (17)_____ for the ability to speak loudly, rhythmically, and with good tone In addition, speech is affected by poorer movement of the soft palate and changes in the facial skeleton, especially around the mouth and jaw. There are other, more general signs of age. Speech rate slows, and fluency may be more erratic. Hearing (18)_____, especially after the early fifties. Weakening (19)_____ of memory and attention may affect the ability to comprehend complex speech patterns. But it is (20)_____ all had news: vocabulary awareness may continue to grow, as may stylistic ability—skills in narration, for example. And grammatical ability seems to be little affected.