The authors of this book emphasize a life-span approach toward understanding the social interaction that occurs during old age. By understanding how the elderly adapt to significant changes in their environment, one can gain great insight into both the process of communication and the process of ageing. The purpose of this book is to help readers understand how important their communicative relationships are and how important they remain across the lifespan. The book is organized into 14 chapters. Each chapter is written so that the reader is presented with an exhaustive review of the pertinent and recent literature from the social sciences. Readers familiar with the first edition will find the organization remains essentially the same, with research updated since that edition. As in the first edition, when the literature is empirically based, the communicative ramifications are then discussed. The authors hope this book helps raise people’s awareness of the barriers facing the elderly in conversation and the importance such conversations play in the lives of the elderly.