Fostering Storytelling by Persons with Dementia in Multiparty Conversation

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 mem…