06 055 Chapter 5 Impact of the age awareness workshop Figure 15. ERA-12 items with the most notable changes in perception ‘I expect that as I get older I will become more forgetful’ Pre-workshop 42% 58% Follow-up 38% 62% ‘Forgetfulness is a natural occurrence just from growing old’ Pre-workshop 42% 58% Follow-up 21% 79% Agreed Disagreed The statements related to cognitive function in older age, which initially generated more ambivalent responses, showed the most substantial changes between pre-workshop and follow-up surveys. In the pre-workshop survey, around 42% of the respondents agreed that forgetfulness was a natural consequence of getting older, whereas at follow-up, a substantially smaller proportion (21%) believed this to be true. Similarly, more than half of the respondents (58%) in the pre-workshop survey thought the statement, ‘I expect that as I get older I will become more forgetful’, was at least somewhat true. The agreement rate was considerably lower in the follow-up survey, with around 38% agreeing with this statement. In the workshop, some common misconceptions related to ageing and cognitive abilities were debunked using scientific and population data. It is likely that these discussions contributed to the shift in respondents’ attitudes and expectations regarding cognitive function in later life. (d) Workers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds It was observed that respondents who reported speaking a language other than English at home had higher average scores on the AAS and FSA and lower average scores on the ERA-12 than those who only spoke English.91 These results indicate that among the participants of this research, those from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds held more ageist views and lower expectations regarding ageing than did workers from non-CALD backgrounds.