"During February-March 2001, we conducted two companion surveys examine whether adult children and older parents talk with each other about the parents' ability to live independently as they get older. We asked people who do talk about this issue what they perceive to be the benefits of having such conversations, and what advice they would give another adult child or older parent about starting such a conversation. When people said they do not talk about independent living issues with their family counterpart, we asked them why
—from the Executive Summary of Can We Talk?
For the study, telephone interviews with 1,431 adults aged 30-64 with at least one living parent age 65 or older, and 1,010 adults age 65 or older with at least one adult child aged 30-64 were conducted by International Communications Research (ICR) of Media, PA. The report was prepared by Linda L. Barrett, Ph.D. of the Strategic Issue Research unit of AARP's Knowledge Management group.