This Keynote Address was delivered at the 73 rd . Annual New York State Communication Association Conference on October 16, 2015. After an anecdotal foray into how he came to study “geronto-communication”, Dr. Giles reviewed his and others’ research and theory on the interfaces between intergenerational communication, subjective health, and aging across many Western and Asian settings. This programmatic body of work was, in large part, guided by communication accommodation theory (which was briefly overviewed). Thereafter, Dr. Giles introduced various views of successful aging and the role of communication practices therein. This led to the formulation and testing of a new theoretical framework, the communication ecology model of successful aging. The thrust of this work is even more poignant as lifespan boundaries and expectations are being incrementally extended
