Trump’s Struggle With Syntax, Sentence Structure Could Signal Cognitive Decline, Experts Say
Stat talked with experts in neurolinguistics and cognitive assessment, as well as psychologists and psychiatrists, to analyze President Donald Trump's changing speech patterns and what they might mean about the health of his brain.
Stat:
Trump Wasn’t Always So Linguistically Challenged. What Could Explain The Change?
In interviews Trump gave in the 1980s and 1990s (with Tom Brokaw, David Letterman, Oprah Winfrey, Charlie Rose, and others), he spoke articulately, used sophisticated vocabulary, inserted dependent clauses into his sentences without losing his train of thought, and strung together sentences into a polished paragraph, which — and this is no mean feat — would have scanned just fine in print. This was so even when reporters asked tough questions about, for instance, his divorce, his brush with bankruptcy, and why he doesn’t build housing for working-class Americans. ... Now, Trump’s vocabulary is simpler. He repeats himself over and over, and lurches from one subject to an unrelated one. (Begley, 5/23)
